




o 

♦ 



. . 

» V. 

l"' 

.' .y o '*'=^‘*’,» „o 
^ '».o’ ^ ^ 

;«A-o ' 


4 O 

•' O 

® « O ^ 


0" '"O ^V -'' •» 





VA 


V 

^ -.-v 


'^'Co ' 

' tf <p ^ 

♦ ^ 

yTtZ- ^ 

*k //A 





O ^ ^ 




'^J • 

^ 0 o ' t # S ^ < 

0^ ^ 0 ^a ^ ^ 


»/» 4 ^ 


o K 


*' * 

: V « 



0 ^ 






° ‘ 

♦ <L^ O -- ^ 

’ \«’^ °-^ *"’* 




v "4 



“ - 

» » 

^ 'y ^ ^ 


' <b^ - 

0 ^ % 
qV ^ OJ* „ ^ ^ 


O O^ 

^ ' 0 . 0 ^ o 

A''' ^ v^ 

<i:^ 

♦ "V * 

^ <Ly ^cL. 





<p 

o 

* ^ ^ 




‘^•‘' .<" <''»•** A<>^ .. ‘^•‘' .V'' 


^o .•'JJ- '^-i. 




. V • ' •• * f ^ ® <* ° ^y ^ 

■ ='- «'' .'^'i'. '^-f> -'^ 

► A <^, "o • >■ '* a0~ c> "••*'<’■ '*✓>' 

' .<•'-• 0^ o ° " ® ♦ *•■'•♦ 






*’ ^ ' 
® V 





V^ 

^ <> ® 
A ^ A.A O 




'• ,* 



VA 


** ^ 

* V ^ 


*' '• 

• ' 0^ to '•-'T'.’;* ,A 

i-o'^ o^" •>, "^o -i"^ , • ‘ ' ■ •■ '^- 




♦ .0 *7* 


S. 



u. ^ A 














4 





DAUGHTERS OF DREAMS 

H IRcmance 


BY 


/ 


K, AND HESKETH PRICHARD 

t t 


{^Formerly ‘ E. and li . Heron^^ authors of Modern 
Mercenary^ etc.^ etc.) 



*NEW YORK 

F K K D E RICK A . S T O K E S COMPANY 


Publishers 


Library of Congress 

Iwu Copies Received 

JAN 28 1901 

I CopyngM mby 

^a^.i iffo/ 
SECOND copy 




Copyright, 1901, 

By Frederick A. Stokes Company 


All rights reserved 


BOOK I. 

LOVE’S MIRACLE. 




r- f‘‘- ..r 


r. 







/V 


t i 


El *i • ^ ' ) ■“■ 


. ’ 



/ • 


\ . 1 
r *f 


.S 




f 


•■•.V 


4 • ' 

V, 



I f 


t I > 


■v '■ v;‘^ »-#■ 


■ » 


• I 


it,/'..' 

« A^/'n • < r * 



■•l J • t ^ f » . • l' ' ‘ 


..'A , ■ - w n 

.ir‘;'’^-. '/ 

♦ ' T ■ '1 


* I 


/■ • •% 






V* I t » * . ’ . 

' ; 4 . .-SV • < 


> 4 k1* 

T-' = /V-Tr^ 

♦1»‘ ' 


‘I'i* 









Mf'i " ' < .' ‘1 .J 

i'. • j - '^ , ' 



/ 


■t ' t 


- 1 


' / 


* 

r 

r • 


*.r. 







»> 


»_ *t' :* 


/f 


. 'j: 


» • y \ 



>S( 

. •> 


•> 


» 


* -•'IV ' 


\ . • 


a 





4'V i 


■? 






.''■ .BBRfljBWf/* /•/ / . ’ -y •‘Vv ^aMV’A 




•;*4 






'.t; 


is)s^.-f'>.r, . -i' 

♦. .\. 




•'■ (s', A^r- 

f '7";i'.'rti .*•, ■>* ■ » 

*■ ' ' ■'■ r''‘ M ^ 

* , ’ • I ; , ',*. ' f *r'/ 




ife*'.'v;V?flS 


■' • K 




/ ^ 


f 

i 


^ >VJ 
It. . 


''»»• 


'v*' 


• V‘Vrv v’^ 



,f. • 

/ \ 


. f 


'.• / ' ^ 


r >1 



■•v 


J 




I '« 





•7 


<)> 

‘i 



» 

•; • 




*'■;■ 




II 
i . 
I 


\' 


i-i.W* 


/■■^\‘‘ -v 

S'. ' y,i 

' ^ ■'.'f 


'i.'' 


v . • 


t i 




» 

. t 


«.• : 
1 


• I 


I 

< 


.v: ■'". ■.li'.Ti ^ 


• 1 


* . 


f 

s 


- 1 






A . f i 1 ■ k ‘ 

jV ^ A ' 

^ ■ 


■’ ■-> 

■■’^:i-:.'-^C-nfr' 

^ ... *' . 


j A •■• 


4.' 

xi' 


,\ 

*1 



k. N 


■,v 


• r* 




. I .. ' ' li 4 k . * ’ < A V - ( < ‘i. * r- • » ; » •. 

V''.' ^ <). ■ 1 ‘ '■ '•‘‘I ■■■ k" ’.^/H'' '■ 






*’ i 
•' i 


» j r . .» 

/, ■:£ L #*.A 


. v> 


ii* 


I . • V: 


w' . ' ' - •*/*•' /WS. -1 

:• / T' ■ ■ 



f 


.rU 
'■EL '^rt. 


\ t 


c 



« 


S ' 


• • 






,*4 


4 ». 

f 

<, 


> » 
• r 


't;;- 
'x V 


tx\ 


>; 


lf> i ' 


. . » 


L-^i •'** i » ' V 


t’ ' % 

• #* 


/J*/ " 

1X1 .‘-4 • ■ 


‘ • ' ♦ •* 

1 • V » • 1 111 * M.’ 


J4 


^ .1 





(■ 


A . . 

V ' • 


Daughters of Dreams. 


CHAPTER I. 

DREAMS. 

It was a time lon<; long ago, past the distant 
hills of other lives, lived somewhere in the mist be- 
yond them. Part savage and part beautiful the 
now forgotten tenour of horse at morn, and court- 
yard and hall in the eventide. Half lost in the 
golden glory of romance, yet none the less were 
men men and women women as we love them now. 

Knight and lady, a procession moving in the mys- 
tery of an cTCon’s twilight. Sleepers in stone in 
ancient chapels, dead lovers and dead loves, who 
long ago turned their faces to the wall. Knights, 
mailed and sworded, with lives perhaps as fantastic 
as their armour, whose hot days ended, the bar- 
baric clay was laid to its abiding rest with 
pageantry. Ladies, clothed in a seendiness of cer- 
emony, bearers of great names, northern passion- 
flowers, who scorned and loved and lastly slept. 
And in the quiet chapels through mullioned win- 
dows the green evening light grew in and closed 
about them and their age. 

Other histories have scrawled themselves over 


4 


DREAMS. 


the names of Karadac Count of Jersey, of Goyault, 
of Algitha and Gundred. Thor aide, the battle-cry 
of the Cotentin and the Isles, even then a Danish 
anachronism, has now its only memory in chronicle 
and stone. But the same hills looked on them and 
upon us, and yet will look on our forgetting. Our 
fevered lives too will sink away into a far-off din 
and then we too shall be enveloped in the en- 
croaching silence, which walks a little, always a 
very little, way behind us. It is this very silence 
that forms the background against which we flash 
out our appointed lives. We are ever racing before 
it a hopeless race, as children race before a cloud- 
shadow on a hillside, until it swallows us and blots 
out the sun for ever. 

On a summer night, while William the Norman 
yet dreamed of Edward’s crown and Harold kept 
the marches of Edward’s kingdom, the island of 
Gersay, with its dark fringe of forest, swamp and 
rock, lay a sombrous jewel in the setting of moon- 
lit sea. The tide was high, and a shining shield of 
water filled the bay, with the long black shadow of 
a reef flung like a scabbarded sword across its 
brightness. Warm airs, soft and sensuous, floated 
over from the island, whose wooded summits hung 
dim against the northern sky. 

On the seaward end of the reef, behind an up- 
standing shaft of granite, yawned the deep mouth 
of. a cave. 


DREAMS. 


5 


“You seek for love, my son?” The hermit 
stood on the ledge above, his white hair and beard 
gleaming pale against the cavern’s gloom. 

At his feet in the open moonlight sat Karadac, 
haute seigneur of Gersay ; down below in the tri- 
angular shadow of the cleft a little boat balanced 
on a heave of water. 

“ Aye, father, seek it through all the seasons — an 
endless tarrying quest ! ” 

Karadac had not raised his head to reply ; he 
brooded despondently upon the tremulous horizon 
southwards, his black hair bare to the light. 

“ Since last I saw you, Karadac, I have heard 
overmuch of dalliance. *You, my own pupil and 
ward — it was not so once with you ! Is this con- 
fession ? ” 

The Count laughed drily. 

“No. If there be One above, He Who has 
created me body and soul can read the intent of 
my heart, and by His judgment alone at the last I 
shall stand or fall. No, father, not confession.” 

The hermit climbed slowly down to the weedy 
ridge beside the Count. • 

“ There are two kinds of love,” he said, “ love 
mortal and love immortal.” 

Karadac moved impatiently. 

“ I .seek human love. I am young, — give me 
mortal Jove ! So, it may be when I am grown old 
this mortal love may lead me upward to the love 
divine.” 


6 


DREAMS. 


“Is all human lov^e but mortal then?” The 
hermit put the question with a ring in his voice. 

“ So I have ever found it,” the Count said bit- 
terly. “ Yet once 1 too dreamed of love immortal 
to be held in mortal hands, but — it was a dream.” 

“You have sought love in dalliance. My son, 
break off from that quest, and wait until love im- 
mortal seeks you. You cannot paddle in sin and 
go with white feet before the throne of God.” 

“ What care I so I find love' — the supreme love 
that binds man to woman, the love that draws two 
— so tliey be together — unto heaven, or sinks them, 
if their sin be heavy, deep to hell I Possessing such 
love, a man might dare damnation. Without it — ” 
the young man’s head fell upon his breast. 

He broke off and the hermit looked at him. The 
dark noble head, the long limbs, hunter and warrior 
and ruler, in his comely youth he yearned for love: 
was it ordained that from him also love should 
dwell afar always ? In the silence the water sucked 
and gurgled with caressing lips under the boat. 

“ I walked with white ifeet in my early days,” re- 
sumed Karadac ; “ yes, in those earlv days when 
temptation stirs most strongly in a boy’s heart. 
And if I have sinned since then, — how can a man 
know what love is unless he seek it ? There was a 
nine days’ wonder with me once — I thougiit I had 
found ! ' I thought it for nine days and nine 
nights ! ” 

“ At what season ? ” the cool voice cut in upon 
the passionate tones. 


DREAMS. 


7 


“ In spring.” 

“Satan is loosed in spring.” 

“ He rides his marches with zest at other seasons 
also,” rejoined the Count derisively. “Rut you 
are right,— he possessed her ! And I am still 
alone.” 

“ I have been alone these seventy years ! ” 

“ Old man, when you were young- — if ever you 
were young— have you not felt as I feel here— to- 
night ? ” 

The hermit touched the Count upon the shoulder. 

“ Look ill my eyes,” he said. 

And Karadac looked. At first sight the high, 
worn, ascetic features seemed those of some: blame- 
less saint, but the empty eyes, lit on a sudden witli 
a fire and passion of life, were eloquent of battles 
lost and battles fought again. A great awe came 
upon Karadac as he followed the furrows upon the 
bloodless face, which told of a sorer struggle than 
ever he in his strong youth 'had known. 

“ You have read ? ” the hermit asked. 

“ Perchance the moon and the night have fooled 
me,” returned Karadac, “ but it seems that 1 read 
here in your eyes tliat you too — }’ou too — ” he 
gripped the gaunt hand under its sleeve of coarse 
brown, — “it seems to me that you too — Speak, 
Ulake, we are not prie;>t and penitent to-night — 
what are we here but man and man ? ” 

Ulake turned his face upwards to the moon and 
raised his arms. 


8 


DREAMS. 


“ I too,” he cried, “ I too was once as you are 
now! As great, as fierce, as masterful of fate, as 
hopeful, as hungry for that best sweet gift of. love I 
I too sought, and it took me thirty years of sin to 
know the baffling of all hope. It has taken me 
thirty further years, — grey years, my son — to live 
the wild old passion out of me.” 

“ But love — ” cried Karadac, “ I would not live 
love out'of me! I am full knight and fuller man.” 

“ So was I once.” 

And now ? ” 

“ I know not,” said Ulake heavily. “ I only 
know it is better far never to kiss than to kiss wrong.” 

“Never to kiss.^ — I’ve kissed a thousand times 
and still I am loveless ! No woman born of woman 
comes to me in mv dreams. At times 1 trv to build 
her from the void, deep eyes and golden hair, 
blushed, rounded, beautiful ! The whole sweet vision 
lit by some great noble faithful soul. And this fancy 
of my mind stoo[)s to me from the night, and as she 
stoops, she fades awiiy into the stars and will not 
stay with me ! ” 

“ And your high ideal dwelling among the stars, 
you descend to cla}^ fouling your hands in the vain 
effort to build her image — her glorious image — 
out of slime and mire ! — So you are left to grope? ” 

“ Aye, Ulake, and you ? ” 

“ Once there was a far-off, half-remembered man 
called — not Ulake — who was as you are. He is 

f 

^onc I 


DREAMS. 


9 


‘‘ Then you have never found — never loved ? 
Despair echoed in the question as the Count flung , 
himself face downward upon the rock, and for a 
while in silence he watched a little moonlit pool fill 
slowly with the tide. The water throbbed like the 
pulse in a girl’s throat, and on a sudden he sprang 
up stark against the sky. “ I must love ! Other- 
wise— but there can be no otherwise for me ! 
Ulake, am I not young, lord of my own isle, a 
man whom women look upon with favour ? ” 

“ Aye,” responded the other sadly, “ and are not 
all these things against you ? I too have noble 
blood, and I was strong and comely once as you, 
Karadac, to-day. And yet, though long I sought, I 
did not find.” 

“You were blind, old man!” cried the Count 
aloud, but it was the accent of one who will not 
believe in evil tidings, even when their bitter truth 
grows urgent on the heart. 

“Nay, not blind, but perchance I was groping in 
the mire when the angel unawares passed above 
my bowed head.” 

“Fool, I had not missed her so ! I should have 
felt her near. My heart,” the young man clasped 
his hands together upon his breast, “ my heart 
must have^ warned me, ‘ Karadac, look up, thy 
beloved is nigh ! ’ ” 

The proud words rose exultantly above the ca- 
dences of the summer sea, but the hermit shook liis 
head and sighed. The Count shivered. The fire 


10 


DREAMS. 


of his young manliood chilled before the inexor- 
able disenchantment of age. His clenched hand 
fell to his side, his eyes swept round the wide vista 
of the night. Somewhere outside those dim hori- 
zons she dwelt whom his soul yearned for, but his 
voice could not reach her, cried he never so fiercely. 
The soft night full of vague sweet promise wooed 
his senses and half convinced him of the future, till 
once more his gaze fell on the figure at his feet, 
that wOrn-out negation of earthly hope, and again 
his heart failed him. He almost crouched beside 
the hermit, and his question was an entreaty. 

“ What then shall I do ? ” • 

“Wait.” 

Karadac paused for an instant on the check of 
the one command which in youth seems made only 
to deaden the vitality, the sweetness of effort. 

“ \\ ait — I have waited ! In two years' time I 
shall be thirty years old. My youth is slipping 
away from me, and the desire of my heart remains 
unfulfilled. I have waited — I have prayed, old 
man, prayed the moon down from the heavens and 
the sun into the dawn, and what am I in any way 
the better?” 

Ulake raised his weary eyes. 

In evory way the better, my son. Is a prayer 
lost because the answer comes not to the hour of 
our desire ? Shall we set seasons for the Almighty ? ” 
The lebuke ceased on the old man’s lips as Karadac 
bowed his head. 


DREAMS. 


1 1 

“ What shall I do ? ” he repeated. 

Pray and fast. Past not onl}" from flesh but 
sin. 1 hat is the true fast which few allow or 
follow. And having- done these thino:s, wait. — Love 
is not found by seeking. It comes as the sliowers 
come fiom the hand of God. IVIv’ life has been 
barren— that is all. I sinned in the seeking.” 

I too have sinned, said Karadac, and his voice 
gained strength. “ Nevertheless have I only used 
sin as the road that was to lead me to my high 
aim.” 

“ The wrong road never yet led to the right 
place.” 

“An aphorism ! The man who has not the spirit 
to do wrong has seldom the courage to do right.” 

“ A subtlety ! ” retorted Ulake. “ Karadac, you 
are strong in body and soul, in spirit and in heart. 
It is not given to many to love as you could love. 
B1 essing and curse go linked together in this world, 
the gift is bestowed without the power to use it a$ 
a man would choose. It may be that love will yet 
come to you in earthly guise, or perchance your 
thirst like mine may slake itself at the fountain of 
love divine. Wait. — It grows late, nu' son, come 
to my dwelling. It is a calm place and a placid. 
Thirty years of prayer have consecrated its walls. 
Sleep there.” 

Karadac rose up and followed Ulake. The 
moon had sunk behind the black headland of Noir- 
mont, the salt cool wind stole in through the rocky 


12 


DREAMS. 


crevices and stirred the hair of Karadac where the 
holy man bade him lie upon a bed of bracken. 

So the night wore toward morning, and in the 
breaks of a sweet tired slumber there came to him 
at intervals the strenuous wrestlings of the hermit’s 
prayer. 


CHAPTER 11. 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 

In the morning he rose early from his bed of 
bracken and broke his fast. It was a cold dawn, 
but it heralded in a fair day of early summer. Re- 
fore the sun stood a handsbreadth above the hori- 
zon, Karadac had left the black forest-marsh behind 
him and was riding upwards to the higher levels. 
Turning his face westwards he travelled along the 
edge of the grassy cliffs, whence he looked down 
on lush sea-meadows spread with cattle grazing, 
and here and there a patch of tillage whereon a few 
poor hovels clustered round the dwelling of some 
richer serf. 

In those ancient days the lights of heaven wan- 
dered far before they struck an answer from roof 
and tower. Through the great breadth of the un- 
peopled lands beasts roamed, gaunt wolves, grunt- 
ing grubbing bears, and fierce boars hiding in the 
thickets. And so it was with Karadac’s island. 
I^'or the tradition still lived that the vast forests 
and swamps between Gersay and the Norman coast 
were once continuous, before a great storm rushing 
from the north had torn the land in sunder. Again 


14 


' TIIK SHADOW OF LOVE. 


another legend told of a later deluge and an earth- 
quake lasting seven days, that flung up the white 
cliffs on the now distantvinainland, and made a 
second cleavage of the primeval forest of Sciscy, 
sucking its giant oaks and yewe down into the seii- 
floor, whence they rose at intervals, a rent trunk 
here and there to bear witness to the dead glory of 
their vast native woodland. 

In Gersay all about the sunlit shores in open 
])laces ,wherc the gorse gleamed golden on the 
heights and the blue sea lapped upon the sand, the 
l)eoplc dwelt, simple folk who one and all lived as 
children and thought as children half-sweet, half- 
terrifying imaginations of great adventures, of 
dragons lurking by the reedy margins of the lakes, 
and giants striding on the wooded ridges. All the 
island’s heart was wrapped in mystery ; none were 
known to live there, yet watchers, gazing up 
through vistas of rich deep verdure and hanging 
greenery, whispered of distant figures walking in 
the turnings of the hills; some told of half-seen 
visions of dreadful things that gaped with flaming 
jaws, and others spoke of sorcery and enchanted 
songs tempting the wanderer astray until he plunged 
at unawares into some dark water lying hidden in 
the vales. 

Even Karadac, who often rode to hunt far up 
those dreamv \"allevs with their wealth of green, 
could not escape the thrill which clung about this 
haunted heart of his kingdom, the thrill of sudden 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


15 


shining pools and windings of dim patlis througli 
the moss and grass of green-branclicd solitudes 
where no foot had passed to tread t'nem. ^'et it 
was there. that he loved to ride alone and to dream 
of all he yearned for. 

Karadac, whom the Normans called Count of 
Gersay, was kin to Conan, chief of the Bretons, and 
the island had become an extended fief of Nor- 
mandy at the same time that Bretagne chose to ac- 
cept the feudal yoke, rather as a means of common 
defence than with any thought of submission. 
Much of the old proud Armorican blood ran in 
their veins, they remained to a large extent inde- 
pendent of their over-lord, and William for the mo- 
ment was too busy with his schemes of conquest to 
pay much heed to the doings of his remoter vassals. 
It was this same Conan who a few years later sent a 
haughty demand to William requiring him, since he 
was about to become King of England, to deli\x‘r 
up his Norman duchy to its legitimate lord, the de- 
.scendant of Rollo the Ganger, from whom Conan 
claimed issue on the distaff side. Which daring 
message was the Breton chief’s death warrant, for 
he died of a strange poison but a little while after. 

Karadac with his Armorican blood inherited not 
only a quenchless pride but also an underlying- 
strain of that melancholy which is the sign of deep- 
rooted forces of hfe and thought. 

Through the blossoming morning the Count rode 
At his back the sun smote flaslies from the 


on. 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


i6 

white coasts of the Cotentin, and on the heights 
tlie west wind met him pure with its flight across 
the wastes of an unsailed sea. His mood was 
changed. Refreshed with sleep, he had thrown off 
the despondency of the night ; the sap of the 
springing season had gone into him and he lived 
in all his veins as a man should through the ten 
full-blooded summers of his twenties. 

He rode through a land of boulders and of gorse. 
The scent of the yellow blooms hung rich upon the 
sunny wind and Karadac drew a happy augury for 
the future from the crowd of living fragrant blooms, 
nor in his humour took any note of the petals 
which lay dead and discoloured on the turf below. 

For nine years Karadac had ruled as Count, 
ruled with a justice and a wisdom rare enough in 
those days, his judgments shot here and there with 
silken strands of mercy. The exigencies of the age 
joined to the stimulus of splendid physical powers 
had made him a man of action, but below lay the 
dumb spirit of a poet, dumb inasmuch as it could 
not spend itself in vapourings and words, but dealt 
liim out a hard measure of crossing moods. Often 
the real and the ideal met with a shock that stunned 
him, sent him wandering lost in a vain effort to 
reconcile the twain. 

Yet in spite of many troubled hours such as these, 
his heart led him on a straight fair road. He was 
ruled by ideas often, — ideas which are the stepping- 
stones to ideals. He was capable of a great life in 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


17 

public, but his individual life was destined to be a 
deluge or an idyll. There he was always in ex- 
tremes. 

As the noon came on he dismounted and lay be- 
neath a tree and dreamed all the long bright hours 
through until the sun began to drop towards the 
west. 1 he day was going ; it was time to rise and 
turn rein for his own castle of Mont Orgueil. In 
the soft afternoon he saw below him Ulake’s 
hermitage, black upon the sunlit water. The wind 
had dropped to transient wandering airs which 
here and there brushed the still sea into blurs of 
ruffled brown as if a handful of sand had been 
thrown upon it. 

Leaving the bay behind, he mounted another 
crest of land and following an open track by woods 
and fields he came in the late afternoon upon a 
hamlet lying on the verge of a rock-piled strand. 

As he drew nearer he saw that all the people, 
men and vv^omen alike, stood round a man on horse- 
back who carried something square, flat and large 
before him on the saddle. He held his arms about 
it, and its upper edge rested against his breast. 
The voices rose hoarse and angry upon the quiet 
air. The people demanded something of the rider 
which he would not grant, but spurred his horse 
forward yet could not break through the grip of 
hands upon his bridle rein. 

Softly through the dusty grass stepped the 
Count’s charger until a woman turning saw him 


8 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


come. But her cry of warning died upon her lips 
at sight of his upraised hand. 

“ What is it that you ask of this stranger ? ” 

The rough crowd of fishers and tillers of the soil 
knew the voice of authority and fell silent. , They' 
faced the Count half-cowed and sullen, the low sun 
burning in their eyes. They saw a knight, but 
through the close visor could not recognise the 
Count. 

“ A picture, lord,” cried out a voice at last, a 
woman’s shrill voice ; “ the picture of the blessed 
Virgin and he will not let us look upon it that we and 
our children mayMvin good luck and food for winter- 
time.” 

“ Is this so, stranger ? ” demanded Karadac. 

“ Nay, lord, it is but the jncture of a damsel 
which 1 bear to the Count Karadac of this Isle. 
I dare not finger the thing to open it, or it will take 
harm from sun and dust, and it is the picture of 
that lovely lady, Algitha, daughter of Algar, lord 
of Avening and brother to Br-ithric Maude, lord of 
the honour of Gloucester.” 

“ Then you come from England ? ” 

“ No, lord, from the island of Grenezay, whither 
Algar has been forced to flee because of his 
brother’s rebellion. Some say also that the Lady 
Algitha refused to wed with the Norman lord 
Gauthier de Morlaix, who pressed for her hand at 
Edward’s court, and the king grew angry for he 
loves a Norman as his own soul. Thus for the 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


19 


maid’s sake, she beini^ stubborn, and his own 
safety, Algar escaped to Grenezay, where he lias 
dwelt these four months past with Jean de Jo- 
boLirg.” 

“ Jean de Jobourg?” 

“ Aye, one of our chevaliers whom Duke Robert 
set to be lord of his new castle of Jobourg,” the 
man replied. 

The Count pondered. A little chapel stood, be- 
side the wayside, a poor half-ruined place; the sign 
of a Christianity that had died but was alive agaiii. 
The Count swung from his horse and called the 
messenger to follow him. • 

“ Come in hither. 1 would see the picture.” 

The nian did not giRss'who the tall man might 
be, but yet he dared not disobey.* Climbing slowly 
from his saddle he ’(tarried his burden througla tins 
gaping door, 'the p'eople crowding close upon hiS 
heels. But them Karadac drove out, and yet they 
gathered back, and pushed a chequer of peeping 
faces between the old stone lintels. 

The little chapel was dark within from its poor 
earthen floor to the dim ‘roof, save for a ray of sun- 
shitic which entered from a slittec^ wfndow in the 
wall and lay a broad and quivering line across the 
fo<Yt (T the shrine. Coming from the glare and dust 
outside, something of a holy calm seemed to mingle 
with the dusk coolness of the place. 

The messenger stood reluctant in the centre of 
the gloom. ^ ' 


20 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


‘‘ The picture and my message are for Karadac 
the Count,” he repeated sullenly. 

Karadac laughed a little. 

“ Yet must I look upon it, friend,” he said. 

A mingled groan and shout rose from the door- 
way. The messenger knew it for a threat. Slowly 
he withdrew the wrappings, and holding the picture 
between his open palms laid it below the shrine 
where the light should fall upon it. 

At first Karadac looked with a dull uninterest. 
Then he looked again. 

The picture showed a door frame of carved 
stonework : within its greyness stood a girl, who 
seemed to pause upon the threshold and look 
back with eyes that held the gazer tranced, they 
were so full of girlish mysteries and that woman’s 
lore, elusive, tender, sweet, a man is ever fain to 
read, and ever finds, however much he learns, that 
still beyond his ken lies some withdrawal, some 
delicate reserve. 

The warm and living vision framed in cold stone 
smote the Count’s eyes, it was so like to that which 
stooped to him from the night-skies, “ deep eyes and 
golden hair, blushed, rounded, beautiful.” He drew 
nearer still ; as he moved his armour clanked. 

“ Stand back ! ” And at the words the messen- 
ger stepped backwards scowling. 

The score of gaping faces that hung clustered in 
the doorway grew very still, for the ring of the 
masterful command echoed K) the roof. Then 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


21 


Karaclac, with his back to all the world, slipped 
aside the nose piece of his pointed helmet to gaze 
his fill. 

For this was love ! 

As he saw them now at closer hand, the pleading 
eyes were pure clear blue. Karadac stood breath- 
less, his heart leaped from his breast, a delicious 
aching in the loss. And still those eyes absorbed 
him. All that he had dreamed of, yearned of, all 
the vague promise in his blood, stirred by the 
springtime or crying through the summer nights, 
lay sphered within those eyes, which seemed to hold 
for him the supreme mystery of womanhood and 
love. 

How long he stood he never knew. The last ray 
of the sun crept slowly upwards, leaving first her 
feet and then her fair, slim shape, and then the 
rising darkness touched her throat and wrapped her 
lips. And still the Count heeded not until the 
dying light, centred in her eyes, lent them a sudden 
unearthly radiance that was almost speech. Was 
she calling him, this girl? 

Tlie illusion quickened on him ; he held his 
breath to hear. And at the instant the sun-gleam 
faded, leapt up into the darkness and was gone. 

In the dusk Karadac closed his visor and turned. 

“This damsel, who is she ? ” 

“ I have said. This is the Lady Algitha, daughter 
of Algar, lord of Avening. She is accused — ” 

“ Accused ? ” The Count’s voice rose wrathfully. 
“ Accused ? ” 


--> '■) 


TIIK SHADOW OF LOVE. 


“ Aye, accused of witchcraft. Listen, lord, since 
you have made me speak. 1 am the messenger of 
Earl Algar, and he bade me bring the portrait here, 
for none in England or in Grenezay will fight for her. 

“ She has no champion ? ” 

Not one, for she will not wed, and that many 
people hold to be by enchantment. For what girl, 
though highly born, was ever loth to wed a noble 
lover ? ” 

“ And who first accused her.''” asked the Count. 

“ Sir Gauthier de Morlaix, who in Fhigland de- 
sired the Lady Algitha, but she would none of 
him. So he followed her to Grenezay, and after 
much was. said and many hot words had come and 
g(me, he openly accused her. For that lie swore 
she had bewitched him, since whether he will or no 
he can by no means cure himself (F desire for the 
damsel. And all the winter past, lie has not gone 
f(n'th to hunt but has kept wdthin his castle (which 
King Edward has bestowed on him out of ILirl 
Godwin’s lands), because he is still sick of love. 
Most of our seigneurs in Grenezay now sitle with 
hill). At length Sir Jean de Jobourg called uiion 
.Sir Gauthier to make good his foul words upon the 
body of her champion, whomsoever the Latly 
Algitha shall choose.. But she will not choose, 
since all the lords of Edward’s court and ours at 
Grenezay refuse to fight for her unless she promise 
to many of her own freeAvill him who wins, and so 
sliall she prove herself whole woman, pure of witch- 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE, 


23 


craft and devil’s lore. But this she will not promise. 
And she has spoken bitterly of our knights, callino 
them unworthy that will not fight for love of trutli 
and chivalry alone but must needs have a set reward 
to lure them to the lists. And after that was told 
abroad, no champion offered to espouse her cause.” 

“ Then why are you come here? ” 

“ hy order of the Lady Algitha herself, for she 
said, ‘ Perhaps over the sea, in the Isle of Gersay, 
some noble knight may be found to do battle for 
me.’ ” 

A great silence fell while Karadac pondered. 
Then she had called him, Karadac, to do battle for 
her! It was enough! Presently he- bethought 
himself. 

“Get to horse and . carr\" your picture to the 
Castle of Mont Orgueil,” he said. “ There }'(ni will 
find a champion. Sir Gauthier shall be overthrown 
before the summer leaves are full upon the trees.” 

The messenger raised the picture in the darkness. 

“ I know not. Have you no fear of witchcraft 
in this realm? — Many would fight for the beaut)’ of 
the damsel’s face, but all mislike the tale I needs 
must tell,” he said. 

“ I have heard it,” replied the Count ; “ yet am I 
willing.” 

“ But has it also been told to you that this Sir 
Gauthier of Morlaix is a vast man, and never yet 
was overthrown ? ” went on the fellow, with a sour 
laugh in his beard. 


24 


THE SHADOW OF LOVE. 


“I have .seen him,” .said the Count, “and yet I 
am willing. Ride you on to Gouray — say nothing 
of me — and I will presently follow there.” 

“The Lady Algitha’s champion will need to ride 
with no loose stirrup,” returned the man as he 
gained the door. “ If none be found for her within 
three days she shall be accounted guilty by default, 
and whatsoever Sir Gauthier and his knights may 
judge shall be done to her in punishment. Thus 
her name among all true women must be abased 
for ever.” 

“ Ride on,” said Karadac. 

And when the man was gone, with all the people 
following him, the Count drew forth his sword, and 
holding up the cross-hilt to his lips and breast he 
took his oath before the shrine. None should 
hinder him from going to this maiden’s re.scue. 
She who liad called to him across sea and land for 
help, and his heart had heard and answered her ! 

Before God’s shrine he had met with her, his love, 
and so would lie get him back to Ulake’s hermitage 
and there pass the night in thanking the Giver for 
His great gift. Afterwards he would ride betimes 
to Mont Orgueil and make answer to the herald. 

So he did.. Mounting the crested land and thence 
riding down the sloping beaches to the sea, he took 
boat, and under the cold moon high in heaven spent 
the night in prayer. 


CHAPTER III. 


CRITICS OF ELD. 

The headland of Mont Orgueil, crowned with its 
castle, looked eastward toward France. To right 
and left two horseshoe bays, bitten out from the 
green land, turned tall and jagged edges to the 
Channel tides, which leaped in white spray about 
the scattered reefs at the Mount’s weedy bases. To 
the north curved savage bays, one dark beyond the 
other, and here and there rose wooded heights in- 
land, fringed black against the sky by day and 
crowned with stars by night. 

Upon the ramparts of the castle two men stood 
together in the windy morning, and looked out over 
the broken gorse-clad uplands that lay between the 
castle and the distant woods. 

‘‘Where is the Count? ’’asked Tonstain, a man 
of a fine persuasive presence, black-eyed, black- 
browed, but his thick hair already turned white as 
snow. Some had it that this violent encounter of 
youth and age set in one body marred his looks ; 
others, pleased with the' variance, vowed it marked 
him from the common herd and fitted signally with 
his high renown. P'or the seigneur of Grouville had 


26 


CRITICS OR ELD. 


skill in much strange knowledge, and worked cures 
among the wounded and the sick at which the peo- 
ple marvelled. 

His companion mumbled in his beard. 

“ Who knows ? ’ he said aloud, and shook his 
head. 

‘‘ Me loves to ride alone.” 

“ Alone ? Yes, he rides forth alone, but — who 
can tell?” and Drpgo de.Barantin drew his lips in- 
wards as one who could say much but will not. 

Tonstain looked down at him, for Harantin was 
small and old and ugly, with foolish, anxious eyes 
deepset in a seared face. 

“ You are his chief adviser, and — the Count seems 
not ashamed of many loyes — so I am told,” Ton- 
stain went on. 

“ I am Duke William’s seneschal pf all his lands 
in Gersay. You have read the woyils written, ‘ 'hon- 
stain, for you are a clerk,’ ” — he raised his voice to a 
high ponipous note, “ ‘,and in that which concerns 
our good,s and personal' affairs, have full confidence 
in our well-beloved Drogo de Barantin, seigneur of 
Rozel.’” 

“ Yes, yes, many a time and often I have heard 
of it ! ” interrupted Tonstain glibly. 

“ Aye, and -seen it with your eyes,” insisted the 
old man. “ In Gersay here I stand for the Duke 
himself. In the old CounCs time, when you were 
young and journeying to the Holy Sepulchre, I 
was his chief counsellor and friend. With this 


CRITICS OF ELD. 


-/ 

Karadac I hold but slight authority. Jle acts not 
on my counsels but his own. The times are sadly 
changed, Tonstain, I rule no longer — I obey.” 

“ Karadac is his own man, truly,” said the other 
as if he mused. 

He liearkens to me with his grave face, and he 
will own he lacks experience, but he lives and 
thinks alone — except of late. Goyault of Gros- 
Nez, since he returned full of adventures from 
across the seas, has won much upon the Count.” 

‘‘You should find the Count a wife.” Tonstain’s 
glance fell slily on the disquiet face, whose hundred 
monkey wrinkles creased together more closely at 
the w'ords. 

“That I cannot. He is hard to understand. Of 
la.te he has been light of love, yet all his youth was 
stainless. There are noble ladies he inieht win 
whose tendence and whose tenderness would draw 
him home from these strange wanderings in the 
hills. ITit no — lie will not, no!” He shook his 
head again despondingly. 

“ What think you of this message from Gren- 
czay ? Will he go forth upon this English damsel’s 
quest ?'” 

“As like as not — as like as not! I will advise 
him to stay safe at home. I doubt the issue. For 

y 

it will anger Duke William when he hears that 
Karadac has gone to fight the knight of Morlaix 
for some vagrant Saxon slut ! ” 

“ Have you seen the picture, Sir Drogo ? The 


28 


CRITICS OF ELD. 


damsel is very beautiful, and Karadac, for all his 
solitary communings and lone ventures, is a 
man.” 

“ Yes, but she is smirched with witchcraft, and 
he is proud.” 

“ Whom would you have him wed ? ” 

“ A lady of his blood and land, one that we know 
and love. — Pah, these foolish quests ! ” He sat 
down as one wearied in an embrasure of the par- 
apets, and looked up with narrowed eyelids sus- 
piciously at his companion. “You are but acting 
innocence, Tonstain. You know poor Gundred’s 
secret like the rest ; the only blind one is the Count. 
There is the Count’s true mate, born of the land. 
Slie is my daughter, but her blood is royal and her 
face is not less fair than this beglamouring Al- 
githa’s.” 

“As you say, the Count is blind,” repeated Ton- 
stain blandly. 

Barantin veered as was much his wont from one 
position to another. He would trust and distrust 
in five minutes’ space. To the instinct of a buf- 
foon’s sagacity he joined an unstable will, which 
drove him to put foolish faith in half-suspected 
foes, and to seek help from hands he hated. 

“ Will you be her advpcate, Tonstain, for you 
are master of strange knowledge ? ” he said peer- 
ingly ; “ will you be the man to open Karadac’s 
eyes ? ” 

(^r shut them,” thought Tonstain with malicious 


CRITICS OF ELD. 


29 


, humour, for Gundred had not that which is every 
woman’s right 'and without which she goes beg- 
' gared all her days. Aloud he answered : “ Karadac’s 
humour is not to be counted on, but should occa- 
sion offer 1 will do -what I may.” 

How he was to carry out his promise in the 
future was hidden even from Tonstain’s far-seeing 
eyes. He loved to make a mock of human nature, 
watching its play of passion with a cold and scoffing 
interest ; he lived at secondhand, dissecting his fel- 
lows’ souls, and pleased to hug himself in self- 
content while hearts would ache or break under the 
strain of the remorselessness of life. Sometimes he 
set himself to set his world at odds, that he might 
fill his leisure with the stress of others’ loves and 
hates, their envyings, strugglings, their disappoint- 
ments, and despairs. The agony of that battle was 
to him a mimic tilt from which he drew pastime, 
and a secret cause for smiles, nor was it all for pas- 
time either, since he was not slow to see and seek 
advantage, whoever lost the game. 

Tonstain leaned upon the parapet. He wore a 
flowing' robe, and the wind flicked about its sel- 
vedges. He drew his wide sleeves closer as he 
leaned out to gaze upon the smooth sloi)es of 
sward that lay below the curving curtain of the 
castle walls. 

“ Here comes a rider. See, it is Sir Goyault,’ he 
said. 

“ What ? — Is not the Count with him ? Does he 


30 CRITICS OF ELD. 

ride alone?” The Sieur de Barantin rose with a 
troubled air. 

“ Perchance he follows. Let us look across the 
marshes,” said Tonstain, and led the way by the un- 
even stone footing round the battlements to the 
opposite side. of the tower, whence they could over- 
look leagues of sand and swamp and shallow. 

Close at the cliffs’ foot clustered the hamlet of 
Gouray, and beyond the coast-line trending south 
lav between high-backed ridges and the sea a vast 
waste of weedy flats broken by stretclies of pale 
sand and patched with rocks and beds of heavy 
reeds, and glittering wind-blown pools, where the 
sweet water of the land drained through and spoilt 
its virtue in the brackish flow. 

On the far sea-rim the tide was rising, marked by 
a wliice wavering line of birds. Barantin raised his 
hand to shade Ids eyes and searched the empty levels. 

“ 1 see no one there,” he said at last. 

But Tonstain under the edges of his flat cap saw 
a struggling atom in the distance. 

“ Is there danger on the flats now, Drogo? ” he 
asked. 

“You are of Grouville and do not know! The 
water rises fast as any horse can gallop.” 

Tonstain met the scornful question with a smile. 
“ I see a rider who knows his danger and who rides 
at haste. He comes from St. Clement’s. Perhaps 
Karadac if he has been at the hermitage with the 


CRITICS OF ELD. 


31 


De Barantin clicked his tongue derisively. 

“ Recluse!” cried he. “ Had you seen Anne of 
Rozel, or that French minx Yvoine, you would not 
tell me of recluses 1 La, la, la, when Karadac rides 
forth gorse-blossoms are in season — a\’e, and kisses 
•too ! ” ‘ . 

“ I had not thought him such a one,” replied the 
other. 

Tonstain halted at the word as he was about to 
descend the winding stair. 

‘‘ Nor I, nor I myself, but he has proved it once 
and again of late. Do not forget our compact, 
Tonstain ; I will find means to pay you back in 
full. Speak if occasion offers to Karadac. h'or 
though he scatter kisses here or there, a wife — 
mind you, a wife, — it would give me some hold 
upon him. Gundred too — ” and so muttering he 
went into the darkness of the tower stair. 

The seigneur of Grouville waited until the slow 
footsteps died away in silence, then he turned his 
face skywards and laughed at the mounting sun as 
though the upper heaven were his confidant. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 

Goyault Seigneur of Gros-Nez made no 
haste to appear in the great hall of the castle of 
Mont Orgueil, although the fluster and the whisper 
of strange news from Grenezay had passed through 
the courtyards and the dim corridors. The Count 
was absent, none knew where, and Barantin, lord of 
Rozel, to whom in lieu of the Count he must other- 
wise have presented himself, was said to be en- 
grossed in considering the message which the 
newly-arrived herald had brought from the neigh- 
bouring island. 

Goyault’s horse was tired, his armour had lost a 
rivet, and to both these matters he attended before 
he crossed the green steep of sward, and passing up 
under the second portcullis mounted a rocky way 
eased by stone steps in the steeper places that led 
him to the hall. His entrance was greeted with a 
shout and the crowd rallied round him telling tid- 
ings of some famous jousts, when or where to be 
held no one could say. Vague rumours from who 
knew what source had reached them, no news that 
was assured, but enough to raise idle expectations 
to the highest. 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 


33 


At first a hundred questions assailed Goyault, and 
eager hands plucked at his tunic sleeves, but to all 
he answered truly that he knew nothing and added 
here and there some jest, at which they laughed, and 
still they crowded round him, for Goyault, whether 
he carried news or no, was always a chief favourite 
with his kind. 

A face fine-cut and souled with chivalrous eyes 
crowned the perfection of his shape. Those* eyes 
were fair and clear and of a blue that flashed and 
lightened in his rage, but for the most part laughter 
dwelt in them, and those who saw it would lov^e the 
man unawares. He had wandered far in England 
and in France, and stories of his prowess, carried 
home by minstrels to the Gersay castle, were greed- 
ily ^believed. For Goyault had been born in some 
happy hour when envy slept and only love awaked. 

The talk in the hall swung on between question 
and reply. Some said the herald carried somewhat 
on his saddlebow. A picture ? — No, no, that could 
not be ! — though young Guille de Samarez vowed 
that it was so and he would take his oath of it. 

Apart from all the laughter and surmise a lady 
stood at the upper end of the hall, Gundred de Ba- 
rantin, alone — she always seemed alone — and silent, 
sad with distant thoughts excepting when the 
Count was by. She was a woman tall, harsh- 
featured, bitter-black, in whose face, love battled 
pitifully with a certain shame and agony of pride. 

Across the throng her eyes caught Goyault’s, and 


34 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 

he read a summons in them. Breaking from his 
friends he reached her side. 

“ Would you not hear the truth about these 
jousts?” she asked in her strange utterance, sweet- 
toned but thick and stumbling. 

‘'Yes, if I ride thither,” he replied, smiling. 

“I think you will ride thither, and perhaps the 
Count. But you, yes, you must go because — ” 

Goyault moved his shoulders carelessly. 

“ Why must I go ? ” 

“ Shall I show you why ? ” she answered. Fol- 
low me.” 

He took her hand, the long brown slender hand 
lie knew that one man hated, and led her from the 
hall. At the door of the castle chapel sjie stopped. 

“ Goyault,” she said, struggling for clear speeTch, 
“Goyault, listen. This day’s, business means much 
to you and. me.” 

He dropped her hand. , . 

Lady, you love the shadow and I Iqve the 
light.” ' • 

“ Nay, I live in the shadow yearning for the light, 
■—ft is an unhappy lot > I wo,uld not have 3^011 share 
it. Yet the stars have said our fates are knitted 
close.” . ( 

Goyault’s brow clouded and he crossed himself. 

“The saints fprefend ! ” he muttered. What 
of this herald’and his message.?^’ 

“ He has come across the sea from Grenezay t(> 
bring the picture — ” 


35 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 

“ Then Guillc de Samarez was right — there is a 
picture ? ” 

“ In the chapel here.” She pushed open the door 
and entered, but turning on the threshold walked 
beside him to where, raised upon a settle by a pillar, 
the picture faced a narrow window. 

Goyault stood silent before it. And that which 
is the sweetest and fiercest in man’s life swept 
through him. For two long years he had not seen 
her face, and now she seemed to stand within the 
reach of his arms. A storm of feeling shook him 
like a reed. In his heart was he not always dream- 
ing of this girl, whose eyes held some wistful ques- 
tion, and to whom the man and knight withiii him 
had gone forth irrevocably when he had seen her, a 
shy young slip of maidenhood, in her father’s tent on 
the English shore. 

“You know her?” Gundred’s voice fell as a 
hand falls on a sleeper’s arm. 

Goyault started with a quick sense of danger, 
then he turned his head and looked at her across 
his shoulder with a smile. 

“ I have seen her,” he said. 

“ Is not this 'that Algitha of whom you told me 
once ? — You men with your full lives forget the very 
words you speak, but women who drag out dull, 
empty lives at home remember. This is the Lady 
Algitha, daughter of Algar, whom two summers 
past you swore to wed when she should be grown 
to womanhood.” 


36 THE GREAT QUESTION. 

A dark colour stained the sunburn of his cheek. 

“ What of her ? ” he said shortly. 

“ I will not harass you with delay, because I see 
your heart is in the matter,” returned the woman 
gently. “ She would not mate with Gauthier de 
Morlaix, and he now accuses her of witchcraft where- 
by he cannot choose but love her still, although the 
man is sick of love.” 

“She needs a champion? — I will go!” He 
sprang half-way across the floor. 

She laid her hand upon the rigid muscles of his 
arm. 

“ Wait a while. In her own land none will de- 
fend her cause. She is a witch, they say.” 

Goyault laughed again contemptuously. 

“ She is beautiful — that is all her witchcraft ! ” 

“ I can well believe it,” said the woman mourn- 
fully, and she like Goyault dwelt upon the pictured 
face. “But what of the Count? The message 
is for him.” 

“ He will give me the errand. Karadac loves no 
woman.” 

“ I pray Heaven it may be so ! ” 

“You have heard more ? — What is it ? ” 

“No,” she answered heavily; “my heart mis- 
gives me. That is all.” 

A strange new pity pierced him. This it was to 
love in vain. To tremble at a glance, to ache in 
secret for a word, to be the mock of grinning fools, 
live in despair, and to die abhorred ! 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 


37 


Gundred had moved forward and stood beside 
the picture. The same light fell on both, and 
Goyault’s gaze turning in pity from the lovely 
semblance to the breathing woman changed. Un- 
wittingly. Gundred had challenged comparison with 
one who was so fair that all men loved her. A 
quick disgust divided pity upon Goyault’s face, 
and Gundred, turning, saw. The sight stabbed her 
with remembrance : she had read the same harsh 
thought in other eyes, those dear, estranged eyes 
that were the Count’s. 

Then all her pent-up misery broke out in side- 
long questionings. 

“ What is man’s love, Goyault ? Answer me ! 
What is it you love ? Is it the girl ? — or is it not 
her mouth, her eyes, her shape ? — Which is it 
then ? ” 

Goyault paused. This was love too, this swift 
and galling anger that wrung the lips which uttered 
it. 

“ The whole,” he answered kindly enough. 

The one sweet element supports another ; each 
adds to each, and they are indivisible. Without 
those tender lips she would not be herself : without 
that wistful look I carry in my heart, she would not 
be herself. It is the whole we love, the whole 
most blessed embodiment and soul. It is herself 
we love. Would you dissolve her into parts for 
judgment ? That is not to love ! 

Gundred smiled the thin, hard smile of scorn. 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 


‘‘if she were marred ?” she asked, and paused 
upon the question. 

“ Marred ? — Now God forefend ! ” 

“ Aye, God forefend ! ” she echoed gently. 
“ Sucli loveliness is rare. But answer, Goyault. If 
she but stumbled in the fire face downwards and 
lost her beauty in the flames. Or if she were struck 
\yith that foul sickness that sears the face and 
blinds the eyes of many — would you love her then ? 
— love her soul if this delicate sheath were spoilt 
by sickness or some mischance? ” 

Goyault pondered. 

“It could not be ! ” he said at last, and shud- 
dered. “It is unimaginable ! ” 

Gundred’s grave eyes still held him. 

“ 'Fhat is no answer. Answer me.” 

Goyault’s pity was worn out, his patience almost 
ended. He turned roughly from her, and leaning 
his arm against the wall looked through the lancet 
window at the sea beneath it, blue as the eyes he 
loved and rippling into a hundred changes like 
those same eyes. Gundred waited, to her own hurt, 
for she had power to read the minds of men. She 
knew this G()yault with all his noble strengths and 
noble weaknesses. She watched the clustering 
circlet of auburn curls close-ringed on his neck, and 
waited for her answer. Presently his light wrath 
spent itself, and he put his shoulder to the wall and 
leaning there answered. 

Men are not angels. This world is ruled by 


39 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 

rtosh the monks would tell you so. Hereafter 

who knows? Be not too curious, Gundred ; take 
love and give Heaven thanks.” 

\\ hv does man love woman ? she ’im[)ortuned 
him still. 

Goyault s foot moved restlessly. Worse than a 
gnat was (jundrcd with her stinging doubts. Un- 
lovable with all her wealth of love. It was her 
wont to touch the mind with misgivings that would 
not be allayed and yet could find no satisfvdncr an- 
swer. 

“Why?” he returned. “Because he must, in 
truth ! ” and laughed. 

“ And wh y does woman love man ? ” 

“ Because she will, no doubt.” 

“ No, Goyault. Love, who will not be compelled, 
compels us, man and woman alike. We love, not 
because we will, but because we must. The differ- 
ence lies in this — that women love the unseen quali- 
ties of the soul, and, whole or marred the man, 
could love him still — aye, and j)erhaps the dearer 
were he scathed in some sore fight or sickness. 
And in return you love but what you see, the out- 
ward guise, look, colour, the perishable (jualities of 
the clay ; no more — no deeper goes your love. 
Here meet together life’s two great miscounts that 

make for pain and woe, for add them as you may 

\ 

they cannot balance fair, the one so far outsums the 
other.” 

“ Not so, Gundred. Even in men, believe me, 


40 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 


there is less of earth than you would answer for to- 
day. Prove a man’s love before you tell its score 
so certainly! Is it not true that we can sorrow if 
we lose? Since all of earth is gone for ever in the 
loss of death, and we love on, is it not thus evident 
we love the unseen with the seen ? Have you 
never heard of men who loved but once ? ” 

“ A great sorrow chastens,—” Gundred began, but 
he broke in : 

“ A great sorrow is often only another name for a 
great constancy,” he said. 

“Then you could love the soul? Is that what 
you would say ? — Nay, more — that you do love 
the soul of this fair Algitlia of yours? If that be 
so, Goyault, were lier soul in my body, you could 
love her still ? ” She seemed to scourcre him with 

o 

the words, and hung upon his answer, all her face 
gone darkly drawn and pale. 

Goyault sprang upright ; she had driven home 
her argument. He looked at her from feet to head, 
the gaunt form and sad, ill-pleasing countenance. 

“ Lady Gundred — ” he stammered, but a horror 
grew within his eyes. , 

“ No more — no more,” she wailed, and covered 
up her face, “ for bitterly you have answered me,”^ 
and in a storm of tears she left him. 


CHAPTER V. 
love’s oath. 

Gundred was- gone, but Goyault still lingered in 
the chapel. Not to look upon the presentment of 
his love but burdened with misgivings and full of 
thoughts to which he found no clear solution. To 
love was his, but to love worthily, was that his too? 
He knew no answer to allay the newly-bitten doubt. 
He had kept the image of Algitha, the Saxon maid, 
pure within his heart these two long years, but only 
lapse of time could prove him steadfast to that 
loyalty. Algitha and Gundred, Gundred and Al- 
githa, the two names tossed about upon the surface 
of his consciousness ; and all that they betokened 
worked in a bewildering contest in his brain. 

What was it that he loved ? The beauty of Al- 
githa ? Then he pondered upon Gundred. Apart 
from outward seeming was she not beautiful? Aye 
was she ! A great and gracious soul dwelt locked 
within that bodily prison. Oh, crudest fate ! Yet 
surely some man might learn to love her. For him- 
self? — No, for ever no ! She was good perhaps, 
noble perhaps, and true most certainly. She pos- 
sessed everything but the one gift of beauty : 
Beauty that filled the eyes and won the heart and 


42 


LOVE'S OATH. 


drove men desperate ! Goyault flung up his droop- 
ing head. Happier far for Gundred had slie been 
dowered with the birthright of a fair presence and 
lacked all else! Fair without a woman must be. 
Fair within? — pray heaven send it! But loveli- 
ness? — the very heart in him cried out for loveli- 
ness. Else — and Goyault smote his breast, but if it 
were in pride or penitence who can tell 7 — and swore 
that without it he at lea^t could never love. 

With tliat a new thought woke. Where was the 
Count ? Would he were come ! Then Goyault slowly 
left the chapel and went out upon the causeway, 
and lingered there until a clatter and a calling down 
below told him that Karadac had ridden home and 
all the castle had gone forth to meet him and to 
hear the news. But the hunger for solitude being 
upon Goyaul.t, he turned aside, and passing through 
a little wicket gate between the grey rough walls he 
came upon an open space of turf and brambles and 
wild roses blowing in the soft June wind. From 
there he listened for the tramp of many feet and 
murmuring of voices as they brought the Count to 
see the picture in the chapel and to hear the story 
of the Lady Algitha. Presently they climbed iii)- 
wards, many curious footsteps following upon the 
Count’s, but all voices silent, save only the cracked 
chattering of old Drogo de Barantin, with Ton- 
stain’s smooth cadenced tones, and here and there, 
isolated as his own life, the deep answers of Count 
Karadac. 


LOVE’S OATH. 


43 


Afterwards it seemed to Goyault a long time be- 
fore he heard the voices come again into the air. 
And at once the Count called aloud : 

“ Goyault, where is he ? ” 

Goyault threw back the little gate and stood re- 
luctant in the opening. 

Karadac looked up and his voice rang as since 
liis boyhood none had heard it ring. 

“ Stay, Goyault, for I would talk with you.’' 
And so dismissing those who crowded on him, he 
sprang up along the steep and followed Goyault 
through the gate. 

Karadac’s eyes were alight ; something of his su- 
perb gravity was gone. He took Goyault by the 
shoulders. 

“What say you to an adventure, Goyault ? — an 
adventure across the sea/’ 

“ I am always willing, as my lord knows.” 

“ Yes, always willing, that is like you! — But you 
are sad ? ” 

Yes, and more; Goyault knew a sudden fear. It 
seemed the flame of happiness that burned in 
Karadac’s black eyes. What could it mean ? — a 
sudden joyousne.ss in his stern and stately, often 
listle.ss lord? What had the Count to tell him? 
Good or bad ? The best would be that Karadac, in 
some lone wandering, had met with love : the 
worst — he could not say it even to himself. 

“Whither do we go?” he asked aloud. 

“ But, Goyault, you are sad — this sunny day 


44 


LOVE’S OATH, 


when all the land and breeze and sea should shout 
together for gladsomeness of heart ! ” 

Goyault turned away. The Count’s geize was 
strong and seemed to pierce the thoughts. 

“ Have I not seen you, lord, sad on many a 
sunny day?” he returned half-smiling. 

Karadac stopped short in his laughter. A shadow 
fled racing over marsh and upland, and fell across » 
them standing there upon the castle height. The 
Count looked up and shook himself as if he would 
shake the chill from off the golden afternoon. 

“Aye, you have seen me sad, but sad again I 
shall never be until my life is blotted out from this 
fair earth ! ” He watched the cloud, and as it 
passed and left the sunshine warm upon them he 
went on : “ Goyault, you are my friend.” 

“ More than that. I owe you all, my life, my 
lands: — all that I live for, you have given me ! ” 
cried Goyault, and for the first time in their friend- 
ship the spur of that remembrance galled him. 

“ I gave you your inheritance, that was all.” 

“ Without your aid it could never have been 
mine. My enemies — of my own house — ” 

“Well, they are dead.” 

“Yeti would not forget,” said Goyault with a 
passion in the words. 

“ Let it rest. You are my friend,” the Count re- 
peated, “ and you must rejoice with me. After 
long years at length I am at rest from all my doubl- 
ings, Goyault.” 


LOVE’S OATH. 


45 


“ I am glad, lord.” 

The Count paused and when he spoke again it 
was in his old sad voice of self-communing which 
Goyault had learnt to know during the many lonely 
hours they had shared : 

“ Where shall rest be found — satisfaction for the 
spirit’s thirst and peace ? — The question woke in 
me when I was a boy. You of all men know my 
sorrows. 1 have hungered for happiness as other 
men for fame and greatness, which are lesser things- 
and cannot stay the soul. Power I was born to; 
for that cause I stand apart from other men, gulfed 
round by lordsliip. Learning turned to husks upon 
my lips when manhood woke in me. War and the 
cliase? — Brute beasts we are who fight and tear 
each other’s tliroats for lust of mastery. Yes, yes, 
I know ; the blood runs strong amidst the glory of 
the crash, tlie struggle and the stroke, when eye 
and hand are swift and sure and the hot brain re- 
joices in tlieir vigour! I have felt that too, but by 
the time the next sun rises all is gone ! ’ Where is 
the pride of yesterday? Vanished like the smoke 
of a dead fire !~And last I turned to love. But 
loves were false and venal, bought kisses on stained 
lips ! And at the best they wearied me, fair forms 
witli spurious souls. But now, Goyault the 
C<mnt smiled and hesitated to pronounce his hap- 
j)iness— “ now the end has come to all my doubt- 
ings, my longings, and my fears. I am at rest ; I 
have found her for whom I have so blindly sought 
these many years ! ” 


46 


LOVE’S OATH. 


Then Karadac told the tale of the picture and 
the adventure that it carried in burning words, and 
as he listened Goyault’s he*art grew big and throbbed 
more daringly in his breast. The light died out of 
his blue eyes, but in his mind it lit rebellion. 
The Count loved, and Goyault loved. Were they 
not man and man ? — And then some echo would 
awake of Karadac’s sad and brooding spirit, and all 
he, Goyault, owed to him. Could he add to that 
intrinsic sadness? — Yet what of it? Love levels 
circumstance and all. A broken life, be it of serf 
or king, writes beggary across the empty future 
days. All that a man hath will he give for love. 

“There are but four days left. We start for 
Gros-Nez to-night, and thence from some wind- 
favoured bay to Grenezay. Goyault, my friend, 
will you not sail with me? I pray this service of 
you. Karadac s voice fell on ears that scarcely 
heard. 

Goyault hesitated, searching in his mind for the 
echo of the Count’s question. 

To Grenezay, Seigneur?” 

“Aye, and I crave a further service of you. 
Would you fight for her? Swear here to me you 
will defend her if I fall as though she already were 
my wife, the wife of your overlord.” 

There \vas a little silence during which Goyault 
was torn this \vay and that. 

” hight for her? To the death! ” 

Then listen, Goyault. She has sent a summons 


LOVE’S OATH. 


47 


and I go to aid her. Within the nnjiith it nui}' be 
she will stand here beside me, my queen I ” He 
stretched out his arms and all the sweet sounds and 
scents of summer answered his full heart in that 
delicious moment of young ecstasy : he gathered 
them inwards to his breast as a man folds liis dear- 
est close and sighed. “ How have 1 hitherto lived 
my life! — But half a life, like some poor bird whose 
wings are clipped from birth so that he never knows 
what ’tis to soar against the sun ! ” 

He stood tall and dark and noble in Goyault s 
sight, his eagle face and eyes outlooking from his 
eyrie. All that he gazed upon was his. A peerless 
warrior and a peerless chief. I hen seeing this 
pondered, will she not love him ? So the thought 
grew upon Goyault and his heart turned. sick within 

him. 

“ I would, Goyault, there were some fair lady 
coming to Gros-Nez that on one happy summer da\' 
we both should wed, thou and I.” 

Goyaidt frowned and shook himself as if he 
would shake the suggestion from him, and turning 
found the Count gravely watching him with the 
kind eyes of friendship. Goyault essayed to speak, 
and then fell back on silence, saying to himself: 
“ I will tell him when we see the cliffs of Grenezay.” 

“ Nay, Goyault, who knows ? ” 1 he Count spoke 

softly, following his own thought. “ This Gauthiei 
of Morlaix, you have seen him ? 

“Yes, in England. He is a great knight and a 


48 LOVE’S OATH. 

most savage tilter. Men said that none could stand 
before him.” 

“ Aye, so men say, but we shall prove they lie.” 

“ He jousted in a tournament at York, and in one 
rush met two young knights. It was their first 
shock — and their last.” 

“ Had he the strength of ten men, 1 would over- 
throw him ! ” Karadac sighed again in rapture. 

“ The picture, have you seen it ? ” asked Karadac 
when his radiant thoughts had spent themselves. 

And on that by some blank chance Goyault lied. 
He knew not why nor what had prompted him to 
such a base denial. Thus it began — thus it began ; 
lie wove with his own tongue the first meshes of 
the net that was to hold his feet so fast in those sad 
days to come. 

‘‘Then follow me.” 

By this the chapel had grown obscure, lit only 
with dim evening, for the shadows gathered early 
to the north, but some prying hand had brought a 
lantern and laid it by the picture. But to the eyes 
that dwelt upon her, the damsel shone out with the 
clear lustre of her own beauty on the dusk. 

“ Is she not wonderful ? ” Karadac’s voice was 
hushed. 

And Goyault’s heart made reply but not in speech. 

“ Do not her eyes speak to you ? ” went on the 
Count. 

“ I think that they would speak to all men.” 
Goyault’s an.swerhalf derided, but the Count heeded 
not. 


LOVES OATH. 


49 

“ Yes, she is fair,” Karaclac went on in rapt agree- 
ment. 

And the other raged silently to hear her praises 
on his rival's tongue. 

Hear me now, Goyault. This one maiden of all 
maidens do 1 love. This one maiden of all maidens 
will I wed. You bear me witness? ” 

y Aye,” said Goyault, and the word choked him. 

Then the Count fell into the silence of his 
thoughts, and all tlie while Goyault was torn this 
way and that, raging, yet doomed to dumbness by 
the foolish denial he had spoken among the roses 
in the sunshine on the castle crest when the Count 
asked him had he seen the presentment of his love. 
Then spoke Karadac once more, baring his sword, 
and in the transport of the moment he brandished it. 

“ Come, swear, Goyault, swear with me,” he cried. 

And for the first time that day willingly Goyault 
obeyed. He drew his sword, and as he drew it a 
little wind of evening made a moan within the 
slitted window. So the Count flung out his blade 
and Goyault’s cro.ssed upon it — two shafts of silver 
light that gleamed a second on the vaulted roof. 

“I, Karadac, Count of Jersey, and Goyault, 
Seigneur of St. Ouen and Gros-Nez, his faithful 
friend and vassal, swear before high God to fight 
your battles, lady, and to honour you to the last 
drop of blood. So help us God. Amen.” 

And Goyault's rich voice echoed sadly, “Amen, 


amen. 


CHAPTER VI. 


love’s curse. 

Heavy discontent and grumbling passed abojut 
the hall when it was made known that the Count 
and Goyault alone would cross the sea to Grenezay 
to do battle in the cause of the Lady Algitha. 
Men, balked of excitement and of change, loathed 
the round shores which held them from the larger 
life beyond, or so the\^ said ; and many swore to- 
choose some other leader than their lord Count 
Karadac, whom they had followed in a hundred 
frays u[)on the mainland while the Norman duke- 
dom, swayed this way and that by jealousies and 
feuds, settled itself more firmly by degrees to a se- 
cure foothold, from which William was yet to launch 
himself upon the neck of England. Put Karadac 
was not a captain to be forsaken lightly, for his re- 
nown stood highest even in the warlike Norman 
Court. 

Tonstain, with false reasonings — and silent laugh- 
ter — worked on Barantin to oppose the Count in his 
adventure, till Karadac, ‘vexed with persistent ques- 
tioning and advice, at length sent the old man from 
his presence with one sharp word, and Drogo bab- 
bled about the Castle of the Count’s folly and the 
sorceries of the Saxon <z\v\. 

o 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


51 


I^y midnight all was ready, and Karadac had 
bound two aigrettes of whalebone to his crest as 
chieftain of a realm bordered on all sides by tlic 
sea. Upon the dark causeway he met with Baian- 
tin. The wizened figure, wrapped in its heavy cloak, 
drew pity from the Count. He was half ashamed 
that so poor a thing had angered him last evening. 
In the first flush of happiness a man’s heart grows 
kind. 

“ What is it, Drogo ? — No, no, last ^evening is last 
evening: the day is past and let its wrath go with 
it,” and so he would have passed on but Barantin 
caught at the broidered garment flung about his 
shoulders over the coat of chain mail. 

“ Stay, lord, I have a request — not mine but 
Gundred’s. Will you speak with her?” the old 
man faltered. . ' 

Karadac’s face clouded. 

“ But for a moment, lord. She would wish you 
good luck on your adventure,” he went on. “ Slie 
is here.” He opened the little gate behind him 
and pointed to the open space of turf where the 
Count had spoken with Goyault yesterday. 

It was a sultry night and breathless. Down be- 
low the cliff the sea moved with an oily heave that 
spoke of coming storm. The very air was heavy 
as if burdened with some ill presentiment. The 
fancy woke in Karadac at the sound of Gundred’s 
name. Gundred ? He never liked a woman with 
dark brows, and since the whispers and sly smiles 


52 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


that passed about her passion had wakened him to 
knowledge of it, he almost hated her. Hated her 
the more that even William pressed the marriage 
on him, for Gundred was heiress of large do- 
mains lying on the Breton marches and the Duke 
desired to secure a warrior staunch and strong as 
Karadac to rule them lest a weaker hand let in dep- 
redations like the sea to swamp his throne. 

So Karadac passed through the little gate, moving 
in quick impatience, thrusting aside the dew-wet 
grasses with his mailed feet. The scent of wild 
roses as he crushed them back assailed him like a 
memory of Algitha. Then he saw Gundred. 

She was standing in an angle made by the low 
battlement against the upspringing of a wall that but- 
tressed the castle-tower. So she stood darkly 
centred in a sullen blotch of light that hung in a 
ragged fringe from a lantern above her. 

Karadac approached her silently. He had no 
word of greeting for his thoughts were filled with 
new forebodings and what this sudden cloud upon 
his spirit might portend. He looked from the 
lowering heaven to the threatening roll of water 
and knew that he must hasten if he would escape 
the tempest and reach the shores of Grene^ay in 
good time to play his part of champion. 

And Gundred gazed at him under the dim folds 
about her head, and all her soul was agonised in 
parting. The past times when, though he had not 
been hers, he had still not been another’s, came back 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


53 


upon her with a piteous rush of tenderness. How 
dear and sweet they were ! Though she had 
mourned through them not guessing of the keener 
pain that was to come. To-day he was another’s, so 
far as vows and vagrant love could make him so. 
She pressed her veil upon her lips and bit it through. 
Was there no charm in heaven or earth to lure 
his heart home to her — to its true rest? No, no, 
he was going out for ever, to his death perhaps : if 
not to death, why then to the arms of a fair wife ! 
How should she teach herself the patience to en- 
dure ? How should she live to see him wa.ste his 
love on one who could not give him back one half 
the worship that ached within her? 

Sternly and suddenly he spoke. 

“Lady, farewell. The storm is gathering; I 
must go.” 

“ Karadac,” — she slipped into the old childish 
habit, perhaps with some piteous hope of wakening 
lost and gentler memories, — “ Karadac, spare me a 
moment before jmu go. Nay, I would only say God 
be with you and farewell.” Her voice stopped in 
her throat. 

“ Farewell, lady,” he said again and turned. 

“ Karadac, not yet — Do you forget when we 
played here in other summers and you — you — ” he 
looked down upon her, and ‘his cold gaze cut off her 
speech. 

Yes, he remembered well childish vows and 
kisses, but the touch by her on those same recol- 


54 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


lections, knowing of licr what he did, and being as 
he was in the first flush of passion for tliat other, 
raised in him a mortal loathing which without his 
will his answer echoed. 

“ Chihlish follies, lady, which surely you have 
forgiven.” 

His indifference fired her. 

“ Forgiven,” her fettered tongue impeded her — 
“ but not forgotten.” 

“ Why yes, forgotten too ! ” 

He smiled, and stirred an impatient foot. 

“ There was once — have a little patience with me, 
Karadac,” the urgency of the moment clogged lier 
woefully, “ there was once a noble Christian knight 
who in some far-off adventure fought in single com- 
bat with an infidel and from the body of his foe he 
took a gem, the which became his dearest treasure. 
The gem was clear and blue like a glimpse of sky 
shining through purest water.” 

A (|uick sigh broke in upon her faltering speech, 
for Kar.idac bethought him of sweet eyes blue and 
lim[)id as the jewel. 

“ And afterward that knight returning home was 
wont to praise the beauty of the gem as matchless, 
until one day a certain man who heard him an- 
swered : ‘ By wanderings and bloody battle and 

many sufferings of soul and body you won your 
gem, and I, a plain man who have stopped at home, 
have picked up such another by the sea, as clear, as 
blue, as precious,’ and from his bosom drew a stone 
as lustrous as the knight’s.” 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


She ceased. Tlie meaning of the parable was 
manifest. Karadac recoiled. 

Ihe heart of man is so poor a thing,” he said, 
“ that it but values its possessions in relation to the 
price paid down. Tliat which costs us blootl and 
suffeiing and tears is, being dear bought, held in 
most esteem.” 

Gundred was trembling visibly. Not yet would 
she let him go. One more effort, the supremest to 
a woman instinct all with pride, was still to make. 
She must for dear love’s sake brave the worst that 
man can give to her who fain would win him. 

“ I cannot forget, Karadeic. Who would forget 
those sweetest thu'S of youth — days, Karadac” — 
with a poor attempt at laughter — “when you vowed 
you — ” Her courage broke. The Count’s rigid 
figure cowed the rush of stumbling words. 

“ Remember nothing of that poor sauciness, lady. 
Once more I ask forgiveness for the child tliat once 
was Karadac. Fear nothing. Remind you of those 
old words I never will nor can, for I am pledged to 
love — ” 

She caught him by the arm and in the smoky 
light lie saw the dark face raised to his instinct with 
pleading rage. 

“ Don’t utter it ! Leave the rest unsard, because 
whatever you say now the echo ivill linger in my 
ears for ever Words that cannot be forgotten, al- 
though we yearn to blot them out with blood if 
that could avail to do it. Karadac, hear me this 


in 


5 ^ 


LOVE'S CURSE. 


once. Have I not read your heart through these 
past years? Have 1 not known that in your lone- 
liness you have sought for love, eiiul onl}' love, true 
love, with tears and prayers ? ” 

He frowned upon her blackly, tenfold he 
loathed her now upon this proof of her strange in- 
sight into his sacred quest, his inmost thought. 
How should he endure to meet again those hated 
eyes, knowing they could fathom all his heart.'' 

Gundred shivered. She already knew her fate 
but womanlike would not acknowledge it, so clung 
forlornly to some poor straw of hope. 

“ Karadac, there is a love which has always been 
your own, consecrated from the dawn of life to you, 
a heart where you lie imaged and have been from 
the beginning ; no other shadow has ever fallen 
there. Is that nothing to offer for your acceptance ? 
All yours ! Will ever any woman say those words- 
again with absolute fidelity in your ears? It can- 
not be, Karadac, for none but she of whom I speak 
has been beside you from yo-ur youth. This gold- 
haired Saxon, how know you whom she loves or 
has loved in her time? She whose voice you have 
not even heard — ” 

“ They tell me it is soft and sweet as doves cooing 
in the autumn woods,” he answered remorselesslv. 

“And mine is clogged by .some cruel chance of 
birth — Oh, \ou are cruel, cruel, Karadac! I hate 
you — alas ! no, I love you. My heart is breaking 
for the love of you. For you are mine — I feel it.” 


LOVE’S CURSE. 


57 


She laid her hands upon her breast. “ Mine — my 
love in the here and the hereafter ! Come to me 
now and let that other go. Send Goyault on your 
quest. He is the man, give him his right. But 
you — for love’s dear sake, let no stain of earth dull 
this high lustre of pure love that now is yours and 
mine ! ” 

She knelt before him, stretching oat her hands 
in anguished supplication. But Karadac seemed to 
grow taller on her sight. He wrapped his cloak 
about him, the cold edge of his thigh-piece grazed 
her trembling hand as with one short “ Farewell ” 
he passed her by. 

She watched the shadowy figure trample out a 
savage path between the rose-blooms and the briers, 
and then she flung herself face-downward on the 
springing grass and clutched and tore it in her 
torment. She was strong, deep-hearted and wild- 
willed, and the desire of soul and body conquered 
her in that dark hour, and she cursed him — cursed 
the man she loved ; called down upon him blight 
and disillusionment ; prayed that the mad hour she 
quivered under now might yet be his — despair and 
bitterness and utter blackness — all be his ! 

“Then, sweet Virgin Mother, let me comfort 
him,” was her prayer. 


. - . ■ . ' : --fi ; 1 , , ; - ; 'I j 'I: ■ 

' ' CHAPTER VIE 

f - 

WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 

The storm leaped from the Great Sea into the 
Avesterii'sky-rim, thrusting baCk the moonlight be- 
fore it, and hung hooded and dry-eyed over the 
cowering land. Nothing moved but the sea, and 
that swung groping and hollow-mouthed about the 
bases of the cliffs. 

Goyault rode hard pushing blindly on through 
the sweating sultry hours. Long ago he had lost 
the Count in the deeper gloom of some swaying 
Avooded hill-side. For Karadac, taking Goyault 
with him, had elected to cross the ridgy backbone 
of the island rather than follow the lengthier track 
that curved south and west within sight of the 
shore, l^y this coast road he sent his following to 
Gros-Nez, whence he vowed to embark at dawn 
alone, if not one other man had won his way thither 
in'time to bear him company. 

Somewhere far back in a depth of time, or so it 
seemed to Goyault, they two, Count Karadac and 
he, had ridden out from the keep of Mont Orgueil^ 
their heavy horses sliding and plunging down the 
stony slope under an uncertain newly-risen moon 
that swam pale above a transverse bar of cloud low 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


59 


on the horizon. Then Karadac, breaking off from 
tile main. company, mounted the opposing uplands, 
trusting to his knowledge of the interior to pass 
more swiftly across to the north-western headland 
.above St. Ouen’s. 

h rom the outset the two men had ridden madly, 
not following each other but straining on abreast 
at haphazard, through heavy w’oods, buffeted by 
low hanging branches, down treacherous slopes to 
water-rank valleys, where their tired beasts laboured 
and snorted kneedeep in clinging mire and weeds. 
Yet they jiushed on with desperate spurrings 
through the swamps and a hurtling rush on every 
•open ground. A scarcely conscious race, perhaps, 
y-et each man rod.e to win and each gripped grimly 
at the skirts of death rather than fall upon defeat. 

But that was long and long ago, far back in some 
lost age Avhere he liad lost the Count. Between 
there lay a waste of darkness. The visional*}' ter- 
rors of those mysterious hills and vales were all 
forgotten in tlie living stress of soul and body. 
Love held him all possessed. There was but one 
usurping fear upon God’s earth, not hell-fire nor the 
horrid Da\" of Doom, but only that one dread — to 
fail the Ladv Algitha in her hour of need. 

'Forn with doubt and impulse and ayliscord of 
thought that seemed to rush past him with heated 
breathing of the wind, he saw- himself at one in- 
stant engaged in a wild struggle with Karadac on 
o-'-n downs Innside Gros-Nez. Yet sliould the\' 


6o 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


two, being mighty men and desperate, slay or 
wound each other sorely, his love must stand with- 
out a champion at the Lists ! Or he would dream 
that Karadac fought for her and won — A hundred 
times the changing visions worked themselves out 
to the same relentless issue of perplexity. 

At length it seemed he waked as he drew rein 
upon the thinning edges of a wood of young oak- 
trees. All was black before him, the sea-moan 
sounded close, and a gust of clammy air blew upon 
his face from a void of night. Over all the great 
unearthly tempest towered and brooded. The 
hurry of his ride was checked. Goyault knew he 
stood upon the threshold of the tide and death 
gaped open-throated among the unseen cliffs. He 
waited, half content to wait, for the storm struck 
an answering note in his mood. Nature was at 
war ! And mingling with the vast battle of her 
passions his human passion gained a fit grandeur 
and expression. 

The pause from action brought a throbbing rush 
of heat about him that rang in his ears and sub- 
merged him like a wave. Panting and dizzy, he 
raised his face to heaven as from the shroud of 
purple-black there shot out a sword of light stab- 
bing this way and that, and close upon it a deafen- 
ing roar that rolled and crashed and jolted, wheeling 
to the horizon. The earth seemed to sway and 
rock below under the huge impact. Then once 
again hot silence. 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


6i 


And in the silence Goyault called to mind what 
he had seen in the swift panorama of the lightning. 
His own castle of Gros-Nez clear-cut upon its 
lonely point and on the desolate heath between a 
horse that galloped headlong towards the cliff 
carrying a shape that raised its arms and cried and 
vanished as the gloom closed over all again. 

He raised himself in the saddle and shouted, and 
the hot dry sky flung back the echo in his teeth, 
and Goyault, forgetting all but loyalty to his lord, 
grasped at the bridle and spurred forward calling. 
And the storm grew into black-purple gloom about 
him. 

“ Karadac, my lord, there is danger ! " 

While he cried his horse stopped on a sudden, 
shivering, and stretching out its neck sniffed at the 
ground. Moving his stiffened limbs, Goyault slid 
from the saddle and kneeling groped about the 
grasses in the dark. The smells of the overwrought 
earth stimck up at him. He felt and felt among 
the tussocks. The dome of sky above him shut 
him in, close as the roof of a cathedral. And then 
he touched the crested helmet of the Count. 

“Karadac, my lord ! ” but for a long space gained 
no answer. 

Presently he unloosed the Count’s visor. A fit- 
ful wind came sweeping from under the puffed cowl 
of the tempest, a few broad drops of rain splashed 
upon the uncovered face, and Karadac raised him- 
self. 


62 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


“ 1 heard a voice,” he said. 

“ Karadac ! ” 

“ Do 1 dream ? ” Karadac went on ; “ it seemed 
to me that I was riding through a thicket all alone 
and glad. . . . Then with a roar a deeper blackness 
j^mote me on the brow and eyes. But that was 
\^ears ago. I have been in the dark for years. 
Where am I ? ” 

‘I Lord, I am here — Goyault. And when the 
storm breaks we shall see my. castle of Gros-Nez 
stand on the cliff-head.” 

“ I am in a land of dreams,” Karadac’s words came 
haltingly; “there is thunder on the left and flash- 
ing lights before, and through them Goyault’s 
voice pierces from far away.” 

A new design sprang fully formed in Goyault’s 
brain. His hand tightened upon his sword. Should 
he speak out ? He knew the Count. He had no 
fear. The words beat upwards in his throat. If 
he spoke— what then? A fair fight in the tempest 
with the Count ! His humour, wrought upon by 
Nature’s concurrent fury, kindled to flame. 

“ There are no flashing lights — nought but dead 
darkness. Yet, light or dark, Count Karadac, you 
must bear with me and listen ! ” Goyault .spoke 
roughly. 

The Count laughed. 

. “Now 1 know I dream ! Goyault’s voice in 
wrath against his liege, and the smell of the sea, 
heather at my feet and blood upon my face.” 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


65 

“ Would you play the madman ? ” cried the other, 
his galled mood fretted raw. 

“ Mad ? ” repeated the Count, “ am I mad ?— 
Mad Karadac ! ” He paused and slowly gained 
his feet. “ Goyault, the voice was yours. If I am 
not mad come — touch me.” 

But Goyault, with his rein upon his arm, stood 
aloof and sullen. KaVadac’s strange words struck 
his design of open speech awry. 

“No answer! — Brown and whirling darkness, 
cored with flickering lights and voices passing 
through.” .Karadac spoke again and waited. 

In the interval the lightning and the thunder 
came once more, and Goyault saw the Count 
stand drooping like a broken man, and blood w as 
on his face. 

“ Karadac, what will you ? ” 

“Nay, I do not know. I cannot see you.” He 
touched Goyault. “ Goyault, my friend Goyault ? ” 
he questioned pitifully. 

“ I am Goyault.” 

“ Tell me then, am I Karadac ?” 

“You are Karadac. Come, the tempest will 
break. Let us seek shelter until it passes over. 
Tliere is a shed near by. We cannot reach Gros- 
Nez wdthout the light. Come, follow me.” 

But when he reached the byre he found himself 
alone. The lightning played continuously between 
earth and sky, and a bent figure he scarcely knew 
for Karadac’s stumbled vaguely to and fro, lialting 


64 WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 

and shrinking when the tliunder trumpeted from 
behind the dry-eyed stbrni. 

Goyault shouted. 

“ See, I am here ! ” 

“ How can I see? The air is full of blackness.” 

The answer fell chill upon Goyault’s hot mood. 
Without a word he strode forth, and taking the 
Count by the hand led him to the hut. 

“ Move slowly. In the darkness we may edge 
the cliff.” * 

Karadac hung back like one afraid upon the guid- 
ing hand. 

“ There is light enough to see the way,” Goyault 
answered roughly. 

“ My God ! ” A very little under-breath, and after 
it a hoarse great cry. “ Then it is not a dream, and 
I am blind, blind, blind ! ” 

Goyault, still holding by the Count’s hand, pulled 
him inwards to refuge. 

“ I saw blood upon your brow and eyes.” 

“ You saw it ! Is not that enough ? ” and, feeling 
by the wall, Karadac sank down upon the heath- 
piled ground and all the world about him was a 
mad-revolving wheel of purple-yellow shadows. 

“ Oh God, the Ruler ! ” he shrieked out amidst 
the tumult of the storm, “smite me that this strong 
life in me may wither and dry up. Crush me and I 
will praise Thee ! Tear from me the soul Thou 
gavest and give me eternal peace and sleep ! ” 

But only the thunder answered. 


WHAT THE RED xMOON SAW. 


6 

Goyault stood speechless, his own self forgotten 
in that vision of elemental anguish. 

“O Christ! ’’the voice broke forth again, and 
Goyault saw Karadac, once more majestic, standing 
upright against the storm-lights ; “O Lord Christ, 
blast me, for I .shall never see again ! And some- 
times I shall dream that I can see and wake to find 
the vision false and the whole earth gone dark for 
evermore ! — O God, God, God — never to see again ! ” 

•A howling wind rushed through the hut and fled 
on screaming. 

“A curse has come upon me, O my God ! h'or I 
shall feel the sun and never see the day : and hear 
the clash of arms, but, maimed worse than other 
men, I can rush no more into the heart of battle 
and thence hew out my way as in old times when I 
despised my strength. Blast me, O gentle Christ 
— I cannot live ! ” 

The belhn'ng storm-cloud rent by the wind showed 
in the rift a low red moon. Karadac raised his 
hands and covered up his face. 

“ I am forsaken — now indeed I am forsaken 1 
There is none to hear and none to answer at my cry. 

I am alone for ever in the dark ! ” 

Goyault put out a hand, timid he knew not 
wherefore. 

“ I am here, lord.” 

Karadac sprang towards him. 

“ Is it dawn ? What do you see, Goyault ? Is 
the sea blue and silver?” 


I 


66 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


‘‘Nay, it is night and the thundercloud lowers,, 
but at its skirts a low red moon gleams through.'’ * 

“ A low red doomful moon ! What else ? ” 

“ The heaven is black but clearer towards Grenc- 
zay, and the storm reflected tumultuously in the 
great pool of St. Ouen’s.” 

Karadac staggered back in an access of agony 
and seized in both his hands the frail roof. 

“ And I — I am surrounded bv great walls of dark- 
ness, moving, whirling walls. I cannot live hence- 
forward in blank night, helpless — my God, I, Kara- 
dac, helpless ! A world away from all the world ! 
— It cannot — shall not be ! ” 

Around them the storm brooded and thcCount’.s 
face, fierce and impotent, was lit with the passing 
of lurid light and shadow. 

“ Listen, Goyault, where is the pool ? T.cad me 
to it. It is deep and a fit sepulchre for him who 
was once haut prince in his own land. The red 
moon shines in it, Goyault?” 

“Aye, the red moon shines in it.” 

“Shines down far into the weed-grown depths 
where I shall lie asleep — asleep, for there it is for 
ever night, a double night. And the moons of 
afterdays .shall be reflected above me on the moan- 
ing tides. Come, lead me down, Goyault.” 

“ I cannot, lord Count.” 

“ I will seek death alone ! ” 

“ Lord,” said the other slowly, “ this is not a 
great death.” 


WHAT THE RED MOON SAW. 


6 ; 


“ Death — great ? — what matters it ? You shall 
succeed me, and be overlord of Gersay. Will not 
that content you ? ” 

Goyault's face was set. The red moon waned 
behind closing vapours. 

“ Your pardon,” cried the Count again, “ for I am 
distraught with woe. Yet lead me! You will 
not ? Then if you are still my true knight, see my 
sword is in my right hand, place your left hand in 
my left hand — and fight. Nay, nay, I do not mean 
it, but lead me to the cliff-edge and so to peace.” 

“ I will not do it — I cannot ! Ask anything but 
that.” 

There was a hush over land and sea, the last 
long lu'eathless hush before the breaking of the 
rain. Karadac raised his voice. 

“ Who cursed me that I am blind — blind, blind, 
blind ! To dwell in outer darkness blind and 
maimed and mad! And Goyault — even Goyault 
who called me mad — me, Karadac ! No, it sliall 
not be — I can still die ! ” 

In the returning gloom Goyault rushed out and 
met him in full shock and both were hurled about 
into a turmoil of wild wind and rain. For just 
then the storm broke. 


68 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 

Outside Goyault could hear the sorrow of the 
rain as it beat upon the grass, a close and lashing 
rain. From the clouds the trumpets of the storm 
thrilled and re-echoed, drew near and died away. 
So he watched the dark hour through, broken with 
doubt and longing for the day, though what the 
day might bring he could by no means devise. 
Then a greyness crept slowfooted over the drenched 
forest behind, birds began to wake, and dawn came 
with a little shower. 

On that day was no clear shining after rain ; only 
a leaden sky and the north wind piping shrilly as 
on a winter morning. Goyault sat staring out over 
the desolate expanse of moorland which covers the 
flat scalp of Gros-Nez, at the front of his castle 
standing against the wild western heaven. The 
sea was up and booming along the coast, flinging 
its spume and spray high above the cliff up to the 
castle walls. 

As the light strengthened Karadac began to mut- 
ter in the delirium of his dreams. His thick hair 
was wet with rain and on his brow a black wound 
above the eyes. F'rom muttering he passed to 


THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 69 

waking, and Goyault knew remembrance had come 
upon him for suddenly his limbs grew tense and 
deadly still. 

“Am I alone?” The hoarse question carried 
witli it the torment of helplessness. 

“ It is morning, lord,” was the answer, embar- 
r.issed with the Count’s affliction and the need of 
open speech between them. “A bleak dawning, 
full of cloud and the wind contrary.” 

Karadac moved with pain. 

“ Then the rowers shall work the harder. We 
must be in Grenezay by night.” 

“You also, lord ? ” 

“ I am blind,” cried the other bitterly ; “ would 
you say that? But I still am Karadac, a mighty 
warrior and the champion of the Lady Algitha 
when she calls for one to aid her in the lists.” 

“ What ? Match your new blindness with Gau- 
thier’s practised subtlety and art ? What ? — risk her 
honour and her life on a chance of fate J — No, 
Karadac, that shall never be ! ” Goyault swore 
hotly. 

“ How now ? hTave I yet lost my strength and 
cunning? I will seize him by the throat and 
blind I’ll kill him.” 

“Should chance befriend you — yes; but if not? 
Besides, the laws of chivalry forbid it.” 

What then ? Shall we leave her at the mercy 
of base slanderers? Up, let us be gone ! ” 

“ Have youTorgotten that I am also her sworn 


70 


TJIROL'GII THE CRYING WIND, 


cliaiupion ? Did not my sword cross \’ours last 
night vvdicn wc took the oath together at Mont 
Orgueil ? " Goyault halted. He had meant to say 
much more, to tell all that was in his heart that 
ho too loved Algitha, that in the years past he had 
seen her on the verge of girlhood, lovely even then. 
All this and more he had meant to say, urging how 
love may not be fettered, and to claim his(jwn priv- 
ilege as man and knight to do battle for her. But 
that was yester-even, when Raradac was whole and 
strong. And now Goyault could not find the 
words, for though he loved more stubbornly every 
hour, pity and old friendship held him back from 
ailding a last blow to the poor remnant of proud 
hopes. Karadac was the friend of years, the rival 
only of a day. 

“And you claim ycmr right as a wdiole man and 
sound against a shattered wreck? ” Karadac ques- 
tioned and paused. 

This fierce impatience of pity almost angered 
Goyault. He kept silence, in a half contempt of 
self. Ethics were rare in those days as mushrooms 
in December. Yet he felt a yearning towards the 
liigher part and even for a moment trembled on the 
brink of a renunciation. But then the form and 
eyes of Algitha came between him and his young 
resolve ; the moment passed and was gathered bar- 
ren into the lap of time. It is often thus ; the 
given moment slips past and the related human item 
pays the forfeit. 


THROUGH THE CRYING WTNU. 


/f 

“ Give me an answer: I do not need your pit) 
went on the Count at length. “ Do you claim vour 
right ? ” 

“As your deputy,” Goyault said lamely, without 
the ring of hearty service in the words. 

The dominant temper of tlie Count leaped up. 

“ Have it so then — for her sake. Go in my place, 
go as my vassal, my puppet, the creature of in\' will 
— no more ! ” 

The young knight’s fingers gripped his sword and 
drew it, then softly let it slide home into the scab- 
bard again. Karadac laughed derisively. 

“ 1 know the tongue of steel even when it w his- 
pers,” he said. “ Kill me then. It is my last de- 
sire ! J^'alse friend but dearest foe, here is my 
heart ! ” 

Goyault choked. The Count’s wayward misery 
won upon him more and more. There was a clang 
of smitten metal as Goyault flung his sword and 
spurs together on the ground, and kneeling by 
the prostrate figure thrust his hands into the 
Count’s. 

“ Hark, lord, I have done you Jionwiagc franc up- 
standing as a free knight in your court. Here of 
my own will to-day w hen you are broken and sad I 
do you homniage liege. I am your man, then send 
me where you will. ” 

Karadac lay silent like one dazed for a moment, 
then a sudden glory shot over his changed face. He 
raised himself w’ith a new' vigour. 


72 THROUGH THK CRYING WIND. 


“ Have I found you aj^ain, Goyault my friend? — 
the bid Goyault whose generous blood ran to the 
level of every call that cldvalry could make upon it ! 
The comrade who has ridden beside me many a day 
and whom I loved. A straight fierce knight whose 
manhood sat upon him in a crown of grace, one wlio 
had seen great adventures and still young was 
grown wise in counsel. One whose name I dreamed 
would live with mine long after we twain had fallen 
asleep ! ” 

A silence fell — a little silence while a great lost 
hope was buried. 

“ My fame, my chance of high renown, have been 
smitten from me,*’ lie resumed, touching his brow 
and paused with a caught breath ; “ but in my new 
agony I have forgotten one blest thought. Have I 
not seen the Lady Algitha — not her self but her 
breathing presentment? Henceforvvartl there will 
be but one face before mine eyes aiul I will tell her 
1 would choose blindness with that one memory 
rather than a sightful life and never to have seen 
her face ! Is not that to love, my friend ? ” — and in 
his mood of exaltation Karadac smiled. “ Yes, that 
will show her how 1 love — with no poor common 
love of earth.” 

Goyault checked a groan that seemed like to 
burst his breast. This was indeed to love ! Could 
he with all his passion say the same ? — choose be- 
tween love and the transcendent loss which shore 
away from man self-help and power and all those 


THROUGH THE CRYING \VH\U. 


thousand delicate delights one only counts in missing 
them. . 

“ Why are you silent ?— Does not the cause move 
you?” the Count asked uneasily. 

“The cause moves me strongly. And never yet 
have I been overthrown. Unless I conquer Gau- 
thier I will have done with life ! ” cried out the 
other. 

“Oh, that I too might fight for her! ” In pitiful 
impotence Karadac staggered to his feet : “ I would 
sell my soul for ten days’ sight.” 

“ Have no fear, lord. It is a holy cause and I 
must win.” 

“ Well, I will die with you if that be all. For 
after you have jousted with Gauthier, I will appeal 
for privilege to tilt against him blind. Then St. 
Michael guide my arm ! Come, the day passes 
and we should be gone.” He laid his hand on 
Goyault’s shoulder. 

But the young man lingered, for his wish was set 
that he alone must go and he alone must tilt for 
Algitha, yet he could not compass under what guise 
to urge his will. 

“ Why do you linger ? ” The Count turned his 
scarred face upon his companion, and Goyault, 
driven to extremity, stammered out : 

“ Lord, you are wounded — let me go alone ! ” 
speaking his desire in simple fashion after all. 

But the devil’s destiny that twists our words to 
crafty issues aided him and showed a ready means 


74 


THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 


to gain the worst of his desire. A deeper pallor 
drew away the blood from Raradac s dark face, and 
with a dreadful fear he cried : 

“ Am 1 then so marred that she will loathe me ? ” 

“ Nay, lord, but the wound is fresh. Will you 
not bide at home that the flesh may heal, and when 
my sail comes fluttering home from Grenezay you 
will meet us on the shore and — ’ both voice and 
fancy failed him at the thought of all that might be 
then. 

Rut Karadac was heavy at the counsel, yet he 
could not choose but see that it was wise counsel to 
be followed. 

‘‘ So be it then,” he said at last after long hesi- 
tancv. “ Go, 1 give you my honour, which I had 
never thought to give into the keeping of any. 
Guard it and bring it back to me unstained as now. 
And after you have fought and conquered, I would 
charge you with a message to her. I charge you 
tell her of what temper is my love ; that hence- 
forward there will be but one face upon my dark- 
ness, and say that I would choose blindness rich with 
that one memory rather than a life of daily sight 
without it. That must reach her heart an she be 
woman. With me she will be safe against her 
Norman foes, for William holds me dear as friend 
and vassal. And to her father’s ear add that I 
would not have her driven or bound to listen to my 
suit. But remember, Goyault, say I love her well 
and now I have nothing left but her alone.” 


THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 


75 


Goyault’.s face hardened, then looking- at tlie 
bloodstained aspect of the Count, his nobleness and 
fealty broke his anger, and stirred the true blood in 
him. 

Karadac, 1 will tell her all ; aye, as you your- 
self would tell it ! i will be a mighty advocate." 
He clasped the Count’s hand. “ 1 will recount your 
adventures in the chase, your battles, and .your 
great deeds of chivalry. Then I will on to speak 
of love and blindness, and in her mercy — " 

Mercy ! That she must stoop to him ! The word 
stung the blind Count. His haughty .soul revolted, 
and he could not know that the man who spnkc* 
was offering supremest sacrifice. 

‘‘ Say no more of mercy to the blind ! ’’ Karadac 
cried harshly. ‘‘ I will have no pity in her love ! 
O Christ, this blindness! Must I stoop to pity? 
No! I am blind, aye, but I am still the Count of 
Gersay ! " 

Goyault, under the last of noble impulse, .spoke 
once more. 

“Yes, lord Count, and never so much my liege as 
in your blindness. I will guard your honour as my 
own. Hear me swear it, Karadac ! " 

But when the oath was ended, he thought of all 
that was passing from him, and raised his sad eyes 
to heaven. “ I have said enough," he ended wearily. 

Upon the ensuing quiet the wind brought a 
muffled sound of hor.se’s hoofs, then a slow snuffling 
along the chinks in the wall, la.stly a horse’s head, 
with timid glancing eyes, showed in the opening. 


76 THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 

“What is it?" Karadac asked without turning 
his head. His loss was sore upon him. 

“ You should know who it is, lord," was Goyault s 
answer with something of gladness in his tone, as 
the animal, thrusting one diffident foot within the 
hut, stretched out its neck and laid a soft muzzle 
against the Count’s cheek. 

“ Rene ! — Yes, I should know her, the one selfless 
love I hold in all the earth ! " Then pulling him- 
self together added : “ Though, of heaven’s grace, 
another may yet be mine — who knows? That will 
be your task, Goyault ; bring her back to me. Come, 
let us be going." 

They parted at the castle gate with one more 
word from Karadac. 

“ Your oath, remember. And may long blessing 
follow you." 

And Goyault took horse and rode like an eager 
wind to a bay where the boat lay ready. The men 
hastened to embark for the sea was rising, but or 
ever they rowed forth from under the land, and the 
wind veering to the north-east drove the spindrift 
about the leopards’ heads at prow and stern, Gqyault 
had forgotten Karadac and his oath. To one of 
his temper grief and lack of hope are a burden 
which slips easily from the mind. Already he was 
forecasting of how he should meet with Algitha, 
and whether her eyes would tell him he was remem- 
bered still, that it was by no vain chance she sent 
her messenger to Gersay to seek a champion^ but 


THROUGH THE CRYING WIND. 


77 


that she had known full well how one there would 
answer to the call. Alas, it was not the bride of 
Karadac on whom he pondered but the maiden of 
his own long dreams. 

In Gros-Nez Karadac met with Tonstain and his 
following. ' Question and exclamation and regret 
died out before the darkness of his mood. He 
commanded those who were about him to lead him 
to the tower’s crest where was only a sentinel and 
the wind crying. And he bade them leave him 
there alone with the sentinel and the wind until he 
should presently come down. 

“ What see you ? ” he asked in a little. 

“ I see the boat. She has but now shot round 
the point. My lord Goyault is in her. The waves 
are high and broken and they beat upon the row- 
ers,” answered the soldier. 

An hour passed. 

What see you ? ” said Karadac again. 

“The wind is shifting; they have set a sail and 
the boat tacks outward beyond the surf on the great 
rocks. Already she grows dim.” 

Another hour passed. 

“ What now ? ” 

“ There is nought left but sea and wind,” the 
sentinel replied. 

♦ 


'j tuiil :3ii<> woil U‘jv/ Li.; ' bsd : ' 

* ]|») »f>nff Vfll ‘ .lli.;> .3/0 <>1 r^Wc^ful 

i!p (it)hit:in mO io4' ‘jii utodvr i> *MhjithA 

.'iiilL'Xifj ii wo 

' ■ :• /; >jai iyJiOt/li.X j.' nl 

■■^r. j)MK' .-(n ./vjl.,/) 

.j, 'O |c> ;i;i'> mI;{ •:)’Tf 't','-. 1 ‘i/o b'ipi) 

.. . , fnici f.>;i •> 'w i<; i; *rt >//,. <, ^ft</ ' 

' ■- ¥ ' i t Jltj. ‘Ot’ivj .)f) • '>r(j 

■iMJa" i>rii^ I ** kv;- ;•, , v ■.•' 

’ ' p( >1'*.' r.'L ; i'll/ovl/; 

.-/filil i, (ir M,f ' f^ny 

.' ; fiifi , CJiJr'’/ ,. 'j/f (f. .,'i* ;/ t •' 

' ■■ ^ ,iv/iin !; ) ^'vl y!f .ifi'i. i :>i(* 

'.yj! ' " • '** ' X'AfO firrj.j 

''..v-'V -^ • . . ■;f0 ’',;>'t''j 

lW'Y. ■' ■ hv '• ' ' . ' 4' !/<>/{ ff/v 

J] f' \ lif't/A'A jy , -' ti/'i /•/ *' 

'• Hi f,f!}.!i^ v<rrv: 

‘ ^ b|fp /o4b fJ.7.M;;« .1 /:..,)( 5, ,t{l ' 

b(/i3 xjioy ,' j > 






V 

/ 


$ 

BOOK II. 

t 

GOYAULT. 




• . «T^ ' • • .^ < ' • * ' 1 ^ ‘ * to . • ". . ^ ' 

'V, 4 < • ’ ■ ' ; '■ •' • • • » ? ~ ^'j ‘ ' 

4 ... , I •' ■' > ./ '■ 

« ‘ ' V/ifS ^ ^ *'<r ‘ 


;( 


' ' tp|jy 


v':'.,f 




p' -.^7^ 

iT} ■''•,■ -4 'I 



* t . 


I 



• 1 ' k 

J- . • ' / ■'• ’ ! 


"IkW 




4 

>» 


J. 


k 


■;W 





r. 





* M' 


* ' 

J / { 


\' 




■\\' 


• A ■' 

: \4r. 


4 ' 

» , ' 


V r * 


• ''l 


/ • 
■ J 


» ' < 


* ■ 


■>VW'' 


l-*'^ 





*. • 


n'. 

;•' #1 V- 


.t • 


r ‘ , 


% 

» 


M» • y • 

/ V. , 


J - 


if 


r,* A 


^ A 

^ ^ if^-: 

■; 4 <^sr .•/!<' 

fi 


• » / 




k- 



V. 


♦ .* 


» » 


‘ • ‘ 1 . 


.•■'A 


•s 

I f 


.r J 

S' 


I* 


u 


1 % 


. ‘"-''.ir 


/ 




<■ 


■•' ■.ii_.>iooa 


V'. 


A. 


k> 


.k* 


r ■ 



,<■ 


, F/'p/- ’’V ff" ' >•! ■' 



•TJD/. /< >V) 


' - 


' ' I - * 'n ■ 

A' " 1 ? 

.. •' • ^ 

‘'.I 


I r 

1 


1 ’, 


» .< ?> • 

■- 

it ' • » ' 

. i>r ‘ 

i' 


1 ..^ 


I 

i 


’Ni 


I . 









I ■ 


> t 


t. 


•V 

t . 


^is 




I » • 

i 

/ • 







} ‘^k 


riF 





4 


i 




€ 


/ 








' / 


|i .»^' 


.Vv 

, *■■ 


\ *1 




<T' 


- 

^'S 


) 0 


t 


/I* - 

V'.; 


* / V 
\/ k ' 


« 

•» 


• P ' ^ IM I ' ' ' 4 "i '* • * 

; . F. 

krwV*. ■ ,■ 

< . ' \r- 

,/^ ',p: •> ■ 5' ■ 


.• atJ, 




.4 


Pa* 

•sK' 



^ * > 

< * / 


• • f. 


: n.'P 


t: i 

\ 


/ 


• • 

■ A.^■ / 

*-f f ' ' f 

V* 


4 •* 


VI 





m 

-V • 'I 


At / /’■ • • ■>’^ 

iU ilik.)'v\.t#r.. ‘A' v.ir . 


■'^>* Uf 

, .'•' ‘i 


r' 


s 

/ 


t 


. ./• Vi'itf" ■ 

pa . 

y p • 


r>. ' 


Ail 


« 


I ^ 

» 

1* 




r 

K 


. I • 






^ :<! •. • 





1 



CHAPTER I. 


A SUDDEN BLUE TRANSLUCEN T HOUR. 

It was a loii^ of wind and lain, hut in 

the evening shone out a sudden blue translucent 
iLOLir. The'lull between the van and afterguard of 
the storm, a time of new gleams and colours, the 
sea crashing still in foam about tiie rocks but on the 
land lay level light and peace. Upon a barren bluff 
of crag the Castle of Jobourg stood square and 
steep and grey, the sunshine at its back. 

Against the south side of the keep leaned an ir- 
regular wooden building, from the upper store}* of 
which a low window opened to the sea. To Algitha 
this window had for many da} s meant hope and 
rescue. From sunrise to dusk and through the 
sleepless nights she watched the sea. W atched it 
change with all the changing hours, now blue, now' 
vivid green or veined with purple currents in tlie 
afternoons and shimmering to a strange milkwhite- 
ness at the hour of dawm. And beyond it, like a 
cloud upon the horizon, Gersay lay. 

Day by day she watched an empty ocean. Nor 
did her courage fail till that last day of storm. 
Every hour through as she gazed upon the raging 
w'ater she knew that he would come ! And yet no 


82 


A BLUR TRANSLUCKNT HOUR. 


word of love had ever passed between Earl Wul- 
noth’s daughter and Goyault. But young love 
translates himself in many tongues. His meanings 
drift like threads of gossamer across the summer 
air, unseen of most, but here and there some des- 
tined eye will catch a tinge of finespun rainbow 
float across the light. A vision come and gone 
within the instant, yet irrevocable as a vow. 

And so it was with Algitha. She recalled a 
thousand times the young heroic figure with the 
sunny eyes that smiled at lier across the courtyard 
where he tilted for pastime with her brotliers, and 
told herself a thousand times that Goyault loved 
her. She clung to the belief and wondered pitifully' 
if he knew how sore her need was. Thus the day' 
of tempest drove her desperate. Her land of 
promise overseas was lost in whirling mist. What 
ship could live or steer against the storm ? And 
yet if he came not by to-morrow he must come toO' 
late ! At that her heart cried out in pity for him. 
The motherhood within her yearned to save him 
pain. 

loo late, too late! The words rancf ev'er a 
weary chorus in her brain. To-morrow was the dav 
set for the trial her innocence, and none could 
tell her how the thing would turn. For at that 
time the laws of chivalry were vet in making, and 
the issue might be moulded by any^ hand strong 
enough to carry out its purpose. Well she knew 
that Gauthier was strong, strong in body^ as in will 


A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 


and guile, and so she wept, sorrowing for the ruin 
of her lover s hopes when he should arrive to do 
battle for her and find the prize for ever gone from 
him ! 

And then her 'mind would sway back upon her- 
self, though on that side was horror. She ached in 
sorrow for Goyault, yet there was some tender 
touch of sweetness in the sorrow. For if tlie loss 
of her meant mighty grief to him, it was because he 
loved her so. No proof of that sweet fact but must 
bring its savour of ‘delight to her. But to-morrow 
and to-morrow and to-morrow, a blank of dread ! 

Even her father now was turned to be her eiuanv. 

✓ 

Harassed by losses, worn out with evil fortune 
when he learned that perchance Edward’s })ardoh 
might be won if Algitha should yield, he wearied 
her with importunities and commands. • Many a 
time he wished that she were not yet fifteen that he 
might force her to obey his will according to the 
law which held in England ; but as the matter 
stood the girl- was free to make her own decision. 
Why would she not wed with Gauthier Fermain ? 
He was one whom women feared though many 
loved him in the fearing. Why did she not choose 
to be as other damsels were, scarce half-reluctant 
wdien the wooer’s heel rang upon the tenet stair? 
Some foe had cast the evil eye upon her or some 
maggot crept within her brain when they lay en- 
camped two summers gone upon the banks of 
Avon.-. So he would question with her until he 


84 A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 

worked his wrath up to a bitter point, for always 
upon a»*guiTient followed the confusion which left 
him maddened and full of violence : nought, they 
told him, stood between him and his lost domains 
of Avening but a wench’s foolish No ! 

Kneeling by the window ledge Algitha passed 
once again through the miserable sequences which 
had brought her to this pass. How they had met 
with Gauthier at King Edward’s courts and how 
his bold gaze from that first moment brought the 
shamed blood to her cheek, she knew not why. 
She hated him! Wed with him? She could not 
and she would not ! 

She spread her arms out into the thinning rain, 
her golden wealth of hair hung to the floor, and 
little curls all wet with driven storm blowing about 
her brow. 

“ O Virgin Mother, aid me, aid me ! I am so ut- 
terly unhappy. I remember how different it was 
two years ago. Misfortune is a cloud creeping 
across the sea. It is all so glorious till the sunlight 
falls into the shadow, and then awakes, a little bitter 
wind. It has been so with me. I am never happy 
now. I cannot choose for champion Goyault, sweet 
Mother. Why do others love me and he only never 
comes? I am so helpless. There is no one to do 
battle for me. And there is no one whom I would 
have do battle for me saving only he. There is no 
one whom I would wed with saving — And he may 
be another’s champion in another land. How know 


A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR: 85 

1 ? O, life is sad. The sun breaks forth !— is there 
a boat upon the sea ? ” She sprang to her feet and 
leant out. 

The uneven shadow of the tower thrust itself in 
dark fingers out to the fringe of brier and bracken 
which overhung the scarp of cliff. Beyond, under 
the clearing sky, search how she might, was nothing 
but a yeasty tumble of brown water. And already 
the night-cloud was rising in the east. 

Yet the far comfort of those blue translucent 
spaces widening behind the wrack came down upon 
her. She looked up, then sighed and smiled 
together. Some vague memory uplifted her tired 
heart. It was of the first time she thrilled under 
Goyault’s eyes ! 

Love may translate himself in many ways and all 
be read and known of men, but in what words shall 
men translate love’s dream ? Love and its coming ! 
She breathed deep, her hands clasped in strenuous 
recollection. What was that shadowy, untouchable 
and passing sweep — that vision of mystery stung 
into being at one swift look. It was so fair she had 
not dared to look again. And now love — alas ! he 
was so slow in coming back to her from the unat- 
tainable, what could she do but bow her head and 
wait ? Clasping the crucifix at her girdle, she sank 
upon her knees, her face hidden in her arms, and so 
kneeling bowed upon the window-ledge and prayed. 

“ Is he coming? I have waited — and my heart 
grows heavy. Mother Mary, let me die or send him 
back to me ! ” 


86 A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 


Slic knelt till, l 3 cing- wc.iricd witli \oiv^ watching, 
edged with the keen-set fret of youth, she fell 
asleep. 

She was so young to stand against tlie world, all 
loving woman to her fingertips. But Algitha had 
to the full that quality of womanliness which makes 
the heart a despot and all the life a willing slavery. 
Her northern blood transmitted passion into 
steadfastness. S‘he was that true and .blind idola- 
ter who believes all things and endures all things for 
love’s sake. 

Presently a foot came blundering up the stair, 
a slow deliberate foot that bliTndered (3nly because 
the way was dark and strange. Then a hand fell 
on the fastening of the door — Algitha had been 
condemned to prison by her father for many days. 
The door turned wailing on its hinges, but Algitha 
slept on. 

A mighty man stepped into the room, and, glanc- 
ing round in theglowof evening light reflected from 
outside, smiled as if satisfied. Although of only 
medium height, Gauthier de I'ermain was of vast 
build. The short hair under the small Norman cap 
showetl a red so dark that it seemed almost brown. 
*His e\'es were also reddish-brown and brilliant witli 
the hue which adds to insolence and shrewd speech 
a point and colour of its own. His tunic was edged 
with heavy gold, and his huge legs cross-gartered in 
the style which he had learned in England. 

lie eyed the girl’s form before he spoke. 


A BLUE TRAxXSLUCENT HOUR. 


“ Lady,” he .said and paused. 

Algitha moved in her .sleep and sighed, falling 
half-prone against the wall, her head upon hei 
breast, her hands dropped sideways across her 
knees. The Norman could not see her face for the 
gt>lden cloud of hair, l)ut the soft abandonment of 
hei attitude and the ludf-opcn palms betraj’cd 
her. He drew softly nearer, his great passion work- 
ing with his will, and hax'ing kxd'.'ed upon her for a 
moment stooped like a hawk. 

He withheld his haiul, no touch fell on her, yet 
as if struck into life by the fire of his look she 
awakened, flinging back her heavy hair, her wide 
blue eyes meetii^g Ins in terror. 

1 le smiled a little, conscious of his power. 

Why are )'ou here ? ” she panted. 

With him she had always been before of a still 
and calm demeanour, but crouching helpless there 
so close to him beneath the cruel hovering face, she 
could not choose but tremble. 

“ Lady, becau.se I love you.” 

“ Stand back for I would rise.” 

“ Rise, sweetheart, rise to my heart ; it is my 
long-pending prayer.” The smile lingered still 
upon his lip.s. 

With the craft of the weak .she accused him. 

“ You do not love ! ” 

He raised his eyebrows. 

•• Nay, but I know that I do love, and that to my 
cost too ! ” But he laughed still. 


88 A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 


“ Not so, Sir Gauthier, for love is always humble.’' 

Am I not humble then? — what would you have? 
Have I not stood like some beggar at your gate and 
craved your dole ?” 

“ A beggar ? ” She knelt, and holding by the 
window-ledge stood swiftly upright. “ No, but a 
pirate who clangs at the outer ward and shouts 
‘ Give me that which you possess, and be my ser- 
vant or I will destroy you.’ ” 

“ So lovers cry in the songs of your own land,, 
and maids have licarkened with kind ears ere now. 
It is a part of love’s strategy.” 

“ A cruel strategy when the maiden is defence- 
less. Should not love be also pitiful.” Like some 
wild creature that fears a trap she stood at bay. 

“ In truth, yes ! ” he agreed jauntily ; “ and there- 
fore I am here.” 

“ What ? ” She bent towards him, a new light in 
her blue eyes. “ Is there then hope for me ?” 

“ Yes, if you let me turn your question back upon 
your.self and ask if there be hope for me?” 

His air of careless gallantry galled her — carelevss 
yet untiring and sure of the event. She met his 
eyes but her own dropped on the instant, for this 
cold, confident, remorseless man had the power to 
.shame her with his gaze. With flushing face she 
turned her back upon him as if to scan the sea. 

Leave me, I pray you ! I am weary.” 

“ Lady Algitha,” he said with contemptuous 
toleration, “ I have long borne with you. But now 


A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 89 


you are woman grown and know that man’s love 
may not be so lightly set aside. You are as a bird 
in my hand, yet I have come once more to ask you 
in all courtesy to wed me.” He stooped and tak- 
ing up the golden hem of her blue over-gown, made 
as if he would have kissed it. But she twitched it 
from his grasp. 

“ That I have already answered. Go ! ” 

The action in its open loathing pricked him 
through his solid self-conceit. 

“ Whatis there in me that you should hate me ? ” 
he cried, astonished. 

She showed a scornful lip over her shoulder. 

“ What is there in you, good Sir Gauthier, that 
any heart could warm to you for having?” 

Gauthier glanced down at his own limbs in their 
well-formed maturity, then threw back his head full 
satisfied. 

“ I have known praise,” he said with sly mild- 
ness. 

“Aye, for many fear you.” 

“And favour — woman's favour.” 

“ Favour may be bought — not love.” 

“ What ? — it is not possible to love one who is at 
least a man, and strong, and some say brave ? ” 

“ Strong to fight for your own self — brave to op- 
press the defenceless ! Why will you not leave me, 
seeing how I loathe you ! ” 

“ In what can I alter niyself to win your favour, 
.sweetheart ? ” 


90 


A J^LUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 


“Way!” she cried; “but God Himself could 
alter you enough to please me ! ” 

V At last she had touched him. But Gauthier de 
Morlaix did not swear as other men ; he held hiir 
wrath cold, reserving deeps of energy for unswerv-- 
ing purpose. His 'silence almost cowed hei. He 
understood the little shiver which she could not 

overcome. ' ' 

“ Yet I can alter you,” he said with deliberate 
slowness. “ I came in all courte.sy to win you to 
my wish: call you that oppression i . You have no 
champion, and I would have saved you from what 
the morning light must bring. You are accused of 
witclicraft. Lady Algitha, and to-morrow judgment 
waits upon you — to-morrow the ordeal ot the ques- 
tion may touch that fair body of yours ruefully and 
leave it no more to be desirctl.”- 
Algitha flashed round upon him. 

“Then I -should be free of that which now I 
hate ! ” 

But Gauthier de Fermain was not again to be 
moved by flouting, while he held the poor flouter 
in his grasp. “ , »> 

“So?. A woman never yet rejoiced in the ruin of 
her beauty, and you, lady, are very woman through 
and through. For that more than all else have I 
desired you. But—” his 'voice, changed to slow 
mockery, — “ the chevaliers, seeing you are beautiful 
and have injured me alone, may resolve it were pity 
to spoil so much of Heaven’s fair work and give 


A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 91 

you to me to do with as 1 may desire. Shall I not 
do as 1 will then — take my own without the ask- 
^ and wild knows, cast that which may no more 
content me to my serfs?” 

“I can die!” the girl cried. . , • 

‘ Aye, in Heaven s good time, not when you 
will.” 

f 

\ ou alone are my accuser — you, who sa)’ you 
love me! — Are we not driven here, poor, exiled 
and outcast by your false swearing? If I should 
be condemned ;to-morrow and rdie some dreadful 
death, you will be guilty of my blood — you—” 

“ Nay, you shall not die to-morrow,” said the 
Norman easily. 

The girl’s proud spirit was not daunted. She 
raised her shoulders with a gesture of disdain. 

“ Do all these things you threaten and yet I cati 
escape you. I may die soon or after many years, 
but whenever my last day comes I will die still hat- 
ing you, Gauthier de Morlaix ! No power of yours 
can conquer that.” 

She turned away once more and leaned upon the 
window, her fair liead and her shoulders outlined 
there. She leaned so a moment cui iously still, then 
with a glad sob she spoke again. 

“ But I am not yet condemned nor are you yet 
the conquerer, my lord ! ” 

“ Where is your champion ? It would seem as if 
all men grew laggards in your cause.” 

“ .Save one ! ” she cried. “ .See, his ship comes 


92 A BLUE TRANSLUCENT HOUR. 

rushing from the night. Make way, Sir Gauthier, I 
would call my maidens and prepare myself to meet 
him.” 

“ His ship ? Who is this lingering champion ? ” 

Gauthier looked at her with a derisive question 
in his eyes. 

“ Goyault, lord of Gros-Nez and St. Ouen in 
Gersay.” In the vehement gladness of the moment 
she smiled her exultant answer. 

‘‘ My witch has a lover after all ! ” said the Nor- 
man with an evil significance, then stooped to 
descend the stairway. 


CHAPTER II. 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 

A PARAMOUNT desire grows and expels the rabble 
of smaller, thought. So it was with Goyaiilt as his 
.ship, leaving the tempest behind it, strained shore- 
wards towards the sunset. Against the light Jo- 
bourg on its crags shone like a picture in an arc of 
blue, each grey line acutely clear after the summer 
tempest. P'orgotten were all the perplexities of 
the hour and of his errand. He no longer looked 
at happiness through another man’s eyes. He 
mused upon the overthrow, of Morlaix as the gate 
which led to joy, unclouded joy. The lover’s 
doubts which might under less difficult circum- 
stances have beset him were not his. As in a room 
of mirrors one sees a single face reflected, so all the 
air reverberated the image of Algitha, the half-aver- 
ted blushed girl of two years ago. His buoyant 
nature, revolting against the strain of unwonted 
sadness, leaped to meet her whom his soul desired. 

Now that the square .shell of Jobourg loomed up 
in black .shadow and sparkling sunset gleams above 
him, his eyes viewed and reviewed the whole. The 
keenness of the lover’s mood burned in him. He 
made a dalliance with delight ; anticipation of see- 


94 


SWEE'l AND SWIFT. 


ing her he loved a^ain overpowered him with its 
stinging fragrance. 

Round tlie rock\^ feet of Jobourg the water 
churned and thundered. there was no landing- 
place, therefore Doyault suffered the steersman to 
turn the leopard's head into the broad channel 
which lies between GrCnezay and the string of 
islands which curv'e about her sides, (joxault 
burned with impatience as they forged slowly along 
the mile or two of lofty coast ere sweeping before 
the sliifting wind into an oblong bay, where, clos- 
ing a vista of two lines of foam, a little kindly 
beach disclosed itself. 

As the boat rushetl up upon a wave and touched 
Goyault leapetl forth upon the sand, yet even then 
was forced to tarry whilst his following came ashore : 
he could not ])resent himself without due formality 
at Jobourg. Ere their ordering was lialf completed, 
from the rugged slopes above a band of men came 
streaming down to meet him. At their head Earl 
Algar, a broad Saxon, his fair hair falling to his' 
shoulders and a long moustache drooping far below 
his chin. A brooch crusted with jewels fastened 
his cloak upon one side, leaving free a great arm 
covered with heavy bracelets. ‘ 

Goyault hardly heard the words with which the 
greeting passed, fcjr was not this the father of her 
he loved ? Nevertheless he told a glib tale of Kara- 
dac while his heart beat in his ears. With a fine 
vagueness he gave it to be understood that he 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


95 


represented his liege, the Count of Gersay, in so 
far that had not misfortune intervened, Karadac 
would have come in person to the jousts. As it 
was, Goyault professed '.himself ready to champion 
the cause of the Lady Algitha without promise of 
•reward, save only that which she miglit choose in 
her kindness afterward to bestow. 

load this Algar answered handsomely, and led 
'on by ancient friendship and the young man’s 
kindly aspect poured forth his woes and disa}:)point- 
ments to the only ears in Grenezay he had n(.)t yet 
awearied with them. 

“ Exiled and beggared and a wanderer, good sieur 
Goyault, all for a girl’s folly, see you how hard my 
case? 1 knew not where to fly, till my daughter, 
who in truth is not so great a fool as her rashness 
might suggest to you, reminded me of Sir Jean de 
Jobourg. In memory of favours done him in time 
past b}^ my good brother Brithric Maude, he re- 
ceived us — with some secret grudging it ma\^ be, 
but I recked not of it. I hoped we had escaped 
but this embittered Norman has, it seems, no room 
for two ideas in his head, and still hankered for the 
maid. So he has followed us and stirred up strife 
afresh. He, with a round half-dozen of his friends, 
dwells with the knight Sampson d’Anneville, to 
whom Duke Robert gave in fief a third part of this 
isle. Had I not sixty heavy years upon my back, I 
should throw down the glove to Morlaix myself ! 
As it is, I thank the Saints that you ask nothing of 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


96 

my girl, for 110 promise will she grant to any knight, 
be he of Normandy or Grenezay. She is bewitched 
herself, I say, whereas Gauthier has accused her of 
casting evil spells of sorcery upon him. 

“ To-morrow we will answer him. 

“Aye, I would that you had another day to rest, 
but the Court of Chevaliers meets by the Duke’s 
command to-morrow to decide cases of moment 
within these shores. Four knights, two of this 
island, Jean de Jobourg and Sampson d’Anneville, 
the two knights sent hither from Normandy, will 
see justice done. This is their custom every year, 
and may God uphold the right ! ” 

So they climbed the steep and waited, and when 
all had reached the level ground, Algar cried out, 
A horse — you have no horse ! ” 

“ By reason of the tempest it could not be em- 
barked.” 

“ Surely misfortune follows us ! — I will lend you 
of the best I can, but alas, the horses in this island 
are but small and light, whereas Gauthier has a 
large Flemish steed, surely misfortunes dog me ! ” 
But Goyault was in no way daunted. He would 
fain have cheered the older man, but Algar grum- 
bled on with Saxon relish until they reached a 
triple bank with fosse between them which crossed 
tlie isthmus of the headland where Jobourg stood, 
an ancient line of defence and now used by the de- 
scendants of the very race against whose inroads it 
was built. 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


97 

Beyond it rose the true entrance gate, flanked by 
small towers and surmounted by a guardroom. 
This gate formed the buckle of a tall belt of outer 
wall ; within it drawn to a smaller circle was a second 
wall, old and ruinous, patched with earth and rub- 
ble, and against it built poor sheds of reed to give 
shelter to the poorer sort of man and beast. The 
keep itself, new built by Jean of Jobourg under 
command of Duke Robert, shone sharp and spark- 
ling in the evening light, and beside it clung a 
wooden building which their host had raised to give 
accommodation to his English guests. 

A great courtyard lay westward of the castle to 
the inner wall. Here it was that Jean de Jobourg 
waited to receive the late-come champion. The tall 
English Earl led Goyault forward, and as he did so 
the soft clatter of a shutter opened sounded overhead. 

Goyault was in the full buoyancy and flush of ex- 
pectation. Handsome, debonnair, his young heroic 
figure moved across the open space with the free 
tread of hope and courage. He was living without 
reservation in the present, and the glow of feeling 
lit his face as a lamp is lighted from within. It 
was the day on which his manhood burst into its 
nf)wer. 

Algitha, watching from above, all over-flushed 
with joy and pride, of him, told herself that her 
heart had rightly judged in those old days in Eng- 
land, when it had chosen and crowned him for her 
king. Seen again the sunny eyes and gallant bear- 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


98 

i-ng seemed to have gained not lost in charm. xV 
young god born of the northern ice-clouds and 
warmed to life by breathings of the soutli, — a knight 
matchless upon the field, or challenging with a 
glance of suppliant worship his lady’s eyes. So her 
mind rang changes of sweet bells that echoed each 
one name — Goyault ! 

After some time the meaning of the words uttered 
below reached Algitha. 

“ You come, seigneur, to represent the Count of 
Gersay ? ” Jean de Jobourg spoke. 

Goyault hesitated. Karadac or himself ? And 
in the pause a sound of straining wood, for Algitlia 
])ent forward to her the answer, pushing back the 
shutter as she moved. 

Goyault raised his eyes. There in the last glow 
of sunset, as Karadac had seen her picture first, 
(joyault now saw herself full-breathing, all her. deli- 
cate beauty framed in the old grey wall. A swift en* 
counter with those blue radiant eyes, a wind-blown 
cloud of golden hair, and she was gone ! 

“ By my faith, my lord of Jobourg, I am here to 
represent myself ! Count Karadac had also come 
Vjut for his new^-gotten wound. The Lady Algitha 
might, had she so willed, have sent two champions 
to the lists to uphold her righteous cause. Where 
is her accuser ? ” 

But his quick glance had long ago picked out the 
powerful pale face and chestnut head of Gauthier 
from the circle of clean-shaven Normans who stood 
around. 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


99 


“ Him you shall meet to-morrow at the Court of 
the Chevaliers which will be held at Ees Landes,” 
Sir Jean answered. “There he will set forth hLs 
wrongs and the evil workings whereby he swears 
the Lady Algitha has striven to undo him. There 
also shall you have opportunity to traverse his ac- 
cusations.” 

Goyault glanced haughtily from eye to eye of 
the assemblage circled round. He longed to defy 
the whole earth for her sake, so hot his l)lood 
coursed in him at that hour. 

Gauthier de Morlaix needed no second invitation 
to show himself. With a stately stride he moved 
into the centre of the scene, for he was one who 
spite all his coldness loved to fill the eye of the 
crowd and win applause. 

“ I am here, Goyault of St. Oucn. What do }’ou 
desire of me ? ” 

.“ To thrust back the lie into your throat ! ” cried^ 
out Goyault, the spark struck from him unaware by 
Morlaix’ placid arrogance. 

Gauthier threw back his head in a loud guffaw of 
laughter which was' echoed among the bystanders : 
many wished to stand well with the Norman baron ; 
besides, there is no combination more popular witli 
the multitude than brute force and self-assertion. 

“ So you shall, youngster, at the sword’s point — 
if you can in the lists.” Gauthier’s reply held a 
covert ridicule which stung the more because it in- 
cluded no slightest trace of resentment. 

Lore. 


100 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


There was another laugh at Goyault’s expense. 

Goyault waited until it died. He had been For- 
tune’s child too long not to know how to make a 
cast for public favour. He crossed to Gauthier s 
side, glancing up and down the big man to em- 
phasise the difference of bulk, and said with a smile : 

“ The ass brayed and kicked up his heels until a 
little dog came and bit him.” 

It was a common jest among the soldiery of the 
time, but it fell so apt upon the occasion that it 
told, catching the humour of the crowd. A shout 
followed, but the sound ceased with some abrupt- 
ness as the laughers recollected at whose expense 
they laughed. A sheepish look passed round, and 
eveiy eye turned towards Gauthier in admiring 
expectation. 

Callous and complacent, the Norman was always 
ready to outrage the self-respect of others by 
brutal words, but he carried no verbal weapon with 
which to play an adversary. Men of his character 
have little use for such : they rule by the iron hand 
and their methods admit of little responsive move- 
ment. Therefore Gauthier, taken at unawares by 
Goyault’s gibe, could find no better answer than a 
threat. 

“ By the splendour of God, to-morrow the cur 
shall have a bloody tongue to laugh with ! ” lu- 
swore. 

But oath and anger gave Goyault no concern. 
He was presently led into the presence of Algitha. 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


lOI 


He stood before her and could not raise his eyes, 
although warmly conscious of the clinging robe of 
white close-drawn about her throat, and the fall and 
rise of the over-gown of blue which told of hurried 
breathing. Her long hair as of old fell waving and 
luxuriant about her shoulders and slender waist. 
But her eyes — what would they tell him in th.e first 
look ? 

“ You have come to be my champion. I thank 
you, Sir Goyault.” 

Her voice seemed to break the charm that kept 
him mute and fearful. He knelt before her with a 
sudden gallant grace, and smiling up into her shin- 
ing eyes he answered. 

“ Did you not know that I should come, lady.^ 
You needed me.” 

“ No, for I am a poor damsel who lacks cham- 
pions. Have they not told you so much of my 
story ? ” 

“ Yes, and I was glad.” lie was upon his feet 
again, and the answer rang. 

Glad ? Then I am forlorn of hope indeed ! ” 

Unlike Karadac, Goyault was a lover born. 
High qualities may rule the world, but near at hand 
it is the natural gift which captures the senses. 

“ I have heard all,” he said simply, but the words 
seemed to carry a score of meanings to her. “ I 
•should have neither part nor lot in your defence, 
lady, had another taken upon him to be your cham- 
pion*.” 


102 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


Al^itha hid her smile in her own heart, and 
raised <^rave eyes. 

“ How had you tidings of my need ? ” 

“ They brought your picture to Gersay, and I 
looked on it.” 

“The picture?” she repeated softly: “ had you 
forgotten then ? ” 

“ Forgotten the banks of Avon and tlie' mornings 
in the meadows ? — No ! ” 

She drew back before his vehemence, her cheeks 
flushing. All her thoughts were stirred and sweet 
and swift. She was filled with a strange weakness. 
She felt the whelming pulse of hidden things. In 
the same far-off way she saw Goyault, the idealisa- 
tion of unremembered dreams. How his name had 
dwelt with her! An empty echo long, which might 
one day mean much. And now he was here, the 
name she loved incarnate ! She recalled his fierce- 
ness in the courtyard, the challenge of his eyes, and 
her heart thrilled. The thrill ran into her tone as 
she falteretl : 

“ Those days were long ago.” 

They seem to me like yesterday now that we 
meet again,” answered Goyault and checked himself. 

Her aspect changed. 

“ Many yesterdays of sadness lie between me aiul 
that past time, Even to-day I believed I had no 
champion, that my messenger had failed,” 

“ The messenger you sent to Gersay ? ” Goyault 
spoke carelessly, but with a secret throb. 


SVVEKT AND S\Vll"r. 


103 

But Algitha was woman onough to see at oiict 
the pitfall of that admission. covert light tlashcd 
under her white lids as she replied : 

“1 had heard many tales of tlic great Count 
Karadac of Gersay. A noble knight who succours 
the distressed, and wields witlial an arm has never 
failed to pluck victory on the field," then slopped 
amazed, for at her words the colour faded under the 
knight’s bronze. 

“True, lady, great is Karadac. And he lias 
charged me with a message for your ears, lie was 
on the way to your relief and aid when the temjiest 
fell upon us, and riding through the haunted forests 
of the isle a hand out of the blank darkness struck 
liim blind." 

Algitha shuddered. 

“It .seems my cause is accursed indeed ; ’’ softly 
below her breath she spoke the thought in fear. 

“ J have won through, huh’. Be not sad. 1 leax en 
chooses its own champions, and yours is a holy ap- 
peal to judgment of the right." 

“ If Karadac had escaped, he would ha\’e been 
my champion ? " 

“ Then two champions would have answered at 
the lists in your name. Lady Algitha.” 

“ Alas, I see you but espouse my cause a second- 
hand ! At best a makeshift ! — I am grateful as be- 
comes me, but I can accept no jiroxy chivalry at 
your hand." 

Goyault in love was blind as other men. 


204 


SWEET AND SWIFT. 


“ Mine is* no proxy chivalry," lie urged, feeling a 
sudden blankness. “ I am in truth a lesser knight 
than the great Count whose undimmed fame — ’’ 

Algitha raised a white hand. 

“ Oh, Count Karadac — the great Count, enough 
of him." 

Hope flushed to life once more in Goyault. 

“ Hear me," he cried; “ I fight in no man’s name 
but my own. For my own right hand I do battle. 
Goyault de Gros-Nez in this adventure chills no 
man lord." 

“ Not to-night," said the level voice of Gauthier,, 
but to-morrow may give you a master." 

“Yourself, Sir Gauthier?" Goyault faced round 
upon the group of Normans who had just entered 
the hall. 

Gauthier shook his big head solemnly. 

“Not I, in sooth, but one whom some men name 
Beelzebub." 


CHAPTER 111. 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 

The hour of Goyault coming was but a lull. The 
storm returned to spend itself in double fury with 
black clouds that lowered and gaped in fire, black 
hurtling water underneath, and all the air gone mad 
with screaming winds. While the dying twilight yet 
lingered Goyault, torn with unsettled purpose, took 
his way without the castle walls. He craved to be 
alone with his doubts and dreams. His outlook on 
the \Vorld was hostile, which troubled him — the 
world was an old friend with whom he had had but 
little falling-out before. But this predicament left 
him at cross-purposes with every easy code of life 
that heretofore had served him very well. 

He wandered along the broken heights above the 
sea. To force his way against the storm midst 
soaking grass and wind-flung briers that laced his 
sides with thorns, to face the pelting rain, to draw 
an angry pleasure from the contest with the gale — 
all these things met his humour and gave escape 
and rest frqm clamorous thought. 

He would rest betimes and review the whole un- 
certain project of to-inorrow — decide how to deal 


io6 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


with claims and aims that vva^ed this same sore con- 
flict in his soul. 

At length, worn out with struggling in the gale’s 
teeth, he crept under a tall thicket in a fold of rock ; 
thick summer foliage sheltered him, and within an 
arching of dry old branches gave him air and space. 
He rested on a jutting stone, his head upon his 
hands. And as the stress of breathing passed, the 
waiting question and uncertainty sprang on him 
and shook hini. Hut by degrees that also passed 
away, and in a drowsy sweet exhaustion Algitha 
and all her nameless attributes of charm, thoughts 
past, present and to come, of which she formed the 
core, so led him on that he was quickly lost to all 
but tender musing on that endless theme. Her 
swift faint smiles, the pink finger-nails with their 
dawning moons, a straying lock that clung .about 
her ear, the queenlike column of her white throat 
as she glanced at Gauthier in the hall — Algitha, 
Algitha I each recollection seemed to be more over- 
filled with aching sweetness than the last. 

So deep was Goyault drowned in such imaginings 
that he forgot the raging turmoil of the {^‘de. The 
sea roared hoarsely as it shocked and strained 
against the hundred-pointed rocks below, and min- 
gling with its voice another cry resounded amongst 
the wild lashing of all created things. Harsh 
screams that jarred, one close upon another in 
quick convulsive riot, and then ceased, only to rise 
again when a fresh agony of rage or struggle woke. 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


107 


hov a time Goyault heard it dimly and it harassed 
him, shaking him almost from the dear oblivion 
his tlream. Then in the pause he would sink back 
into his languorous thoughts. At length the noises 
touciied his consciousness. Like one who wakens 
from a sleep he stretched out his arms and listened. 
At the instant the wind dropped to gather force for 
w fiercer onslaught, and in the pause he heard those 
jagged creaking screams and a wild fluttering near 
^t hand. 

I he hunter’s instinct roused him. IMoving noise- 
lessly, he crept from his harbourage, follo^\•ing the 
sound, but it died suddenly and left him clinging 
on an open scarp of hill. He looked upwards at the 
sky, where behind the flying wrack a thill radiance 
gleamed, and against the gleam of sky a group of 
blown pines shivered. From a deep brake of un- 
tlerbrush at their feet, as Goyault looked, two red 
•eyes flared at him across the dark. 

In those old days men feared many things ; all 
tliat was unknown, mysterious and obscure, and 
much that could be called by none of these names, 
only the common facts of daily life for the naoment 
wrapt in some disguise of myth or circumstance or 
<lream. So Goyault leaned a*gainst the wind upon 
a halting foot, and waited for the moon. And the 
red eyes glimmered balefully upon him. 

Presently a torn rag of cloud let out the light he 
waited for, and then he saw the eyes were set 
within a shallow liead, the head of some great bird 


io8 ■ THE DEAD EAGIA^. 

wind-struck into the thicket and there held im- 
prisoned by brambles and rank inwoven thorns and 
foliage. The man worked round, and climbing up 
the hill slid down among the pines, and so coming 
upon the prisoner unaware he caught the taloned 
feet and bound them straight. Then there was 
hurled upon him a frenzied resistance of wing and 
beak, a vicious gash torn open in his hand, as he 
sought to capture this prize alive, but the wild bird 
could not yield ; it tried a hundred tricks and slips 
of warfare, making its desperate defence till Goyault,. 
worn-out and angry, wrung its neck. 

The rift had widened in the heaven, and Goyault 
saw his captive clearly, a great eagle with a broken 
wing, lying dead upon the sodden grasses of the 
slope. He stood and looked upon it with a shock 
of strange remorse. He had slain the noble bird to 
glut a flush of rage. Repentance stirred withii\ 
him, and all the heaviness of ill-omened acts. Al- 
ways in his own mind he had held the eagle to be 
Karadac’s true emblem. And the storm had seized 
him, and flung it bruised and spent with broken 
wing upon the shore helpless to regain its liberty. 
There he, Goyault, had found it, and when it fought 
for right and freedom had foull}^ slain it. 

What but evil could the thing portend? God’s 
tempest had blown on Karadac, and had he not too 
been flun^ spent, wounded, undone on that dim 
shore called blindness? and in his pain had called 
upon Goyault for succour, and how had Goyault 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


J09 

answered him ? With deception and false oaths 
and secret enmity. The watcher on the hillside 
hid his face in his hands, and a horror of himself 
and of his shame should he betray his oath came 
over him. Old friendship surging up put to silence 
,the new sweet song of love. Karadac had lost all 
save love, and that also Goyault had hoped to win 
from him. Oh vile, vile, vile ! 

In the exaltation of the moment Goyault wa*s 
ready to give up all. Pity for Karadac, hurt almost 
to death by the overwhelming loss, appealed to 
him in an agony of emotion. Under the guise of 
the dead eagle his friend seemed to lie there done 
to death. Old times, old confidence, old-forgotteh 
words crowded back upon him, killing hope but 
raisijig up into a quick and vivid life that seed of 
nobleness which lay ready to blossom in a noble 
deed. Alas! some poor sinners cannot sin com- 
fortably, and of these Goyault was one. 

I.eaving the dead bird where it lay, he turned 
back to jobourg, driven thither by a sudden deci- 
sion. He was Karadac’s friend, he was his sworn 
man. but it was as neither of these that he thrust 
impatiently onward, impelled by a strong resolve. 
No, he saw in himself a self-devoted sacrifice, ready 
to renounce life and more than life for the sake of 
the trust reposed in him. 

Through the dusk the fiery, reproachful eyes of the 
eagle seemed to follow him, and yet it was the 
fierce gaze of Karadac. He could not reason, but 


I 10 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


there was a terrible analogy in his thoughts between 
its fate and that of Karadac. Goyault would fain 
have saved the bird alive, and yet had killed it. The 
idea spurred him to quick effort lest by some hideous 
mischance the type might fulfil itself. Swayed by. 
his impulse he rushed on, speaking aloud. 

“ To-morrow I may be dead ! Aye, I will be 
dead. I will di: in the slaying of this Gauthier, and 
in the after-years perhaps she will remember some- 
times ; ” and the thought of his own martyrdom 
was half-sweet and half-terrible by turns. ‘‘If it 
had been any other, not Karadac,” he groaned. 
“ O Christ, my woe, my misery ! ” 

Yet to die for her, to save her, was something. 
Tliat had indeed seemed a little less than nought a 
short while past, but with the human rendering ot 
changeful moods proportion alters, and this or that 
seems great or small as the lights shift within the 
soul. And witli Goyault, the lights though always 
clear were all too apt to shift. 

He must see Algitha once more and speak with 
her, and afterwards it was his plan to bid her a life’s 
farewell. For if he survived the conflict in the lists, 
it was his intent to take ship and cross the seas to 
fight God’s battle in the Holy Land. His would be 
no plainsaid farewell ; he would take his leave in 
veiled words which in the aftertime she might re- 
call and read out their sad meaning through her 
tears, in the long dead and endless afternoons. 

The thought was very comforting and upheld him 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


1 1 1 

bravely for a space. Yes, he must win speech of 
her, but how' Each difficulty in his path allured 
him. In certain phases of feeling men and women 
take a strange pleasure in picturing out the scenes 
in which they are about to act a part , they see 
themselves saying and doing that which tiiey’ de- 
sign through a mist of fancy, which heighten all 
effects to the level they would have them rise tu. 
So Goyault beheld a fair scene and a sad, and the 
tears stung his eyes although it was jfainted only 
on the air. 

Ashe climbed the steep by Ji)bburg, he looked 
upwards at the piled bulk of the' castle towering 
above. All was densely black there, but about the 
wooden building by its side he saw a scattering of 
wind-smitten lights that now glowed to steady flame, 
now flickered back to broken • luminence. Goyault 
stood below the shoulder of the castle where was 
her window, lit with a dim flame, and some one 
leaned low upon the sill with long hair fluttering 
like vine-tendrils in the breeze 

Before word was spoken, Goyault knew who 
this lone watcher was, and as a sudden wind blows 
a low-hanging cloud to fragments so was his high 
mood shattered by the sight of her. 

Love conquers all, or why were men born young ? 

A whisper fell upon him from above, and he an 
swered it. 

It is I, Goyault.” 

“ Sir, I would speak with you, but I cannot come 


THE DEAD EAGLE. 


[ 12 

to you. Yet there is hold for a crafty foot in these 
rough timbers — ” 

There was no need to answer, only softly to find 
the crevices until he reached a jutting ledge of beam 
which held the wooden framework to the tower 
wall. 

So he stood beneath the window, and kissed the 
sweet hair that blew about his face. Stolen kisses, 
and he would have laid his life the girl knew noth- 
ing of then^, but when he was gone, and they had 
said good-night at length, Algitha gathered up her 
long tresses in her hands and pressed them to her 
breast, her eyes, her mouth murmuring to the un- 
heeding night, which kept her maiden secret un- 
revealed. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 

So they stood awhile in silence, and be sure 
neither was aware of lack of speech. The half- 
hidden moon peering down, the booming sea, the 
rain-steeped perfume of the wind, tiie very creaking 
of the wooden wall when strong gusts beset it, all 
these had tongues that told of meeting and ro- 
mance, the beauty and loneliness of the hour, of fears 
and tremulous hopes ; and more than all the thou- 
sand subtle fantasies each man and woman draws 
from outer things to mingle with some tender in- 
most dream : each has his own, separate, suggestive 
only to one heart and therefore doubly dear, in that 
supremest hour while love remains unspoken yet 
imminent upon each moment’s lip. 

Presently Algitha laughed, a little joyous thrill of 
sound. Happiness speaks so. 

“You have been wandering in the rain.” she 
said. 

“ Aye, lady, for my heart is full of thoughts.” 

“ Of Gauthier and his heavy arm, and that lack- 
humour eye ! — Are you afraid, Goyault ?” 

She had withdrawn herself within the window, 
but with the laughing question leaned forth again. 


H 


THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 


Goyault raised up his face so that the dim light 
fell upon it, and he smiled. 

“ Gauthier is a mighty man of war and it may 
go hard with me to vanquish him, but 1 thought not 
of him.” 

“ Of whom then did you think, lord of Gros- 
Nez ? ” 

Of — of you, lady.” 

She bent over him, and he could see the rose 
upon her cheek. 

“ Your voice is sad. Did you wish you had not 
embarked upon this wild adventure for my sake ? ” 

“ Of that I will let my denial rest until the mor- 
row. I can best prove my knighthood and my ear- 
nest vow upon the field.” 

“ Then why did you think of me ? ” 

“ Because I could not help it, as I believe.’” 
But he was sad again and lacked a lover’s fire. 

“ Good saints, dear lord, how heavy a fate is 
yours ! ’Tis not enough to put your life in peril 
for one poor maiden but you must waste your 
hours in thought of — ” 

“ Her—” 

“ No — it, — the hardship of your case ! Better 
far to ponder on the methods of this great Gau- 
thier, who takes hard blows like a jellyfish and 
allows his huge bulk — or so my father says — to 
fight half his battles for him.” 

“ Thanks, lady ; that will I remember, as I pray 
heaven to his hurt, to-morrow.” 


THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 


“ Well, your thoughts of me~” harking back. 

But Goyault interposed. He could not tell her 
how they ran. 

And of the Count, Karadac of Gersay, who 
would fain be here to help me to defend your 
name.” 

Algitha drew back, and leaning upon the side of 
the casement asked : 

“ What is he like, your Count ? ” 

“ Like } Like some great eagle ! ” and he spoke 
like one proud of the object of his praise. 

Algitha sighed. 

“ Fm glad he did not come. I like a man who 
bears resemblance to his own kind, not to fish or 
beast or bird.” 

Goyault had lost his cunning with her sex because 
he loved her. 

Karadac is a peerless knight,” he urged. 

Long-limbed and stately, strong and supple too as 
the leopards on his shield.” 

“ They have said I am a witch because I will not 
love,” Algitha responded, “ but if Count Karadac 
were my suitor with an advocate so warm as my 
lord Goyault, he surely had prevailed (to move my 
will.” ^ ' 

Here was the moment to strike home, the golden 
moment he might have prayed for ; it was tlie 
crisis of his life come out against him armed with a 
woman’s glance and her all-cancelling smile. Hon- 
our and temptation join issue in his breast. Tl>e 


ii6 THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 

keenness of that conflict burned in him; to be true 
to himself, to Karadac, meant uncounted loss, but 
to fail of all his oaths—. None can say how that 
struggle might have ended — in self-mastery, it may 
be, -but Algitha broke the spell of silent strife. 

“Yourself has brought me to the subject,” she 
said vehemently, “ Lord Goyault, on which I would 
question you before you answer for me at the lists. 
Is it to this Karadac that I owe my champion ? In 
iiis good charity he has sent the flower of his follow- 
ing to take up my cause. Thus they have said in 
the hall. If this be so— nay, listen to me, for I know 
what I would say— then get you home to Gersay 
back again and leave me to my fate ! ” 

“ Lady, hear me — I cannot go ! ” 

“ Have I no word on it? — I say you shall ! I will 
not have Karadac’s champion, or Karadac’s mercy ! ” 
“ I offer neither. I offer but myself.” 

“You — you do not care — praising your Count. 
I hate your Count ! — But you, your life is full ; 
some lady waits for your return across the sea. A 
bear’s death, or to break a girl’s heart, ’tis all you 
care for — what matters it ? Go, I have heard 
enough! No more, I pray of you.” 

“ Lady, hear me.” But she had gone from the 
casement. Then, raising himself upon his hands, 
he spoke masterfully. “ You shall hear me, and I 
will not go ! 

.She swept back to view with a scornful question. 
“ Are you afraid of this Eagle-Count of yours? ” 


THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 


117 

Algitha was above him, mirrored in the flame- 
born dusk of her chamber. 

Then Goyault forgot Karadac, forgot all, the 
sweet love-potence sweeping through him. 

“ 1 know no fear save one, that is to lose— to 
lose—” He dared not say the one .small word that 
centred all his fear, but added lamely: “ Your 
cause, if 1 might tilt for you.” 

“Answer me truly, lord Goyault. Had this 
Karadac never been born, would you have come?” 

“ Yes, yes.” 

“ Of your own self you came ? ” She stooped 
over him. 

“Of myself I came. I saw your picture, but I 
needed no reminder. Vour face lived with me these 
two years past. I heard your need, and slacked nor 
rein nor oar until I found myself in Grcnezay. 
This is God’s truth.” 

She stooped over him, a vi.sion of flushed maiden- 
hood. The darkness was her background. 

“ Well, I will believe you. But, though sore my 
need, I could accept only that knight ’who gave 
himself. No deputy could achieve my vindication, 
and never was more need than mine. I could not 
tell you if I tried of my long watching and heart- 
sickne.ss when no answer came. The raving of the 
tempest nigh drove me mad, it cut off hope. And 
then Sir Gauthier de Morlaix came to me to mock 
me in my sorrow and my shame, for ’tis shame when 
none will undertake a maiden’s cause. He was 


THE HOUR OE GO VAULT. 


118 

here beside me when, across the break of sunlight 
on that water, I saw \ our sail. And I knew — I 
knew that it w,is yours ! ” 

“ You knew ? ” cried Goyault with hot high heart. 

Algitha drew back and bethought herself. 

“ 1 thought it might be — and it was! Never was 
more need. ’ 

And from the dark her lover's voice replied : 

“ Never was greater joy than mine! You were 
not disappointed, Lady Algitha 

“ Nay, tliere was none other for whose coming 1 
had hoped. All say that Gauthier is invincible, — 
you will never know how much 1 hate him! — Yet 
when he heard your name — for I tlung it -at him 
like his own challenge — I thought lie grew graver 
than his stupid wont. Oh, it was good, good of vou 
to come ! ’’ With shining eyes and parted lips she 
thanked him. 

And (Goyault, looking at her, knew it was his 
hour Time and diversity of circumstance do not 
matter, the story is the same yesterday and to-day 
and for ever. We love and are beloved, let all the 
world go hang ! 

‘ I thank Heaven that you had need of me, for. 
need or no, one day I .should have come and found 
perchance no greeting for a forgotten face?” He 
raised his liead towards the light and she .saw the 
wet curls dark upon his brow; and the mother 
moved in her for tho.se anxious eyes that craved 
assurance from her. 


THE HOUR OF GO VAULT. 


119 


Algitha made no reply in words. She smiled, 
but tliat fulfilled his need. And in her heart she 
cried, “ Goyault, Goyaqlt, Goyault I Hers! Her 
knight and lord standing between her and all the 
past ■and all the world,” and a faint echo added, 
All the future ! ” 

Because she was so fair, he dared not look a^ain 
but turned his face .seawards, and the .salt wet winds 
brought with them the scent of heather and of 
^rass, a vision of his own moorland castle of Gros- 
Nez. .A. lover’s foremost wish is often to carrv his 
beloved to his boyhood’s haunts, and happ\- he who 
thereby makes her sharer of his dreams! None 
know how much that means save he who fails. 

So Goyault, with the sea-wind in his eyes, gave 
utterance ; 

“ I would that we could sight the Tower of Ciros- 
Ncz ; it lies out there before us in the night upon 
the shore of Gersay. It is my Castle, and some call 
it desolate, for I am lord of all the bleak north 
i.sland. Great empty flats of moor and gor.^e cover 
it, and behind in ranks the forest stands. But on 
the seaward side there are gaunt cliffs with teeth 
and claws that rend the ocean and withstand its 
power ; nor enemy can set foot upon that shore or 
scale its heights. Unsubdued my frontier, and 
would hold the treasure which I gave into its keep- 
ing against all assault. I would 1 could show you 
that old keep upon its crags, for nowhere blows 
the keen west wind as stinging sweet as from the 


120 


THE HOUR OF GOVAULT. 

ixiighty ocean of sun-setting. It liuins about the 
walls on winter nights, a sentinel who calls ‘All is 
well!’ Free in a free land, with horse and hound 
to pleasure you — would you go thithei , '•lady ? 
The words were out before he knew. 

“ Free ! -I would that 1 were free. 1 liave been 

a prisoner and an exile for so long— since first we 
saw Gauthier de Morlaix sallow face among Ring 
Edward’s Courtiers. If prisoners tiie fiee within 
your Castle, then I fain would go there, said the 
girl, but her heart w'as throbbing in her throat. 

“ Vou ua:)uld be no prisoner, but a cpieen ! Ciod 
grant that we may sail on some bright summer 
morning across the green and livdng glory of the 
sea. And— and--- But these are dreams. 1 he cause 
is vet to win, — vet have no fear, dear lady, I w-ill 
not fail you.” 

“ Nay,” she wfiiispered back, “ I have none. Go, 
my cham[)ion, go rest w^ell and long, and to-morrow^ 
thrust dowm my enemy before you.” 

But Goyault only murmured : “ Must I go ? ” 

And in the warm and blowdng summer dusk, his 
hand sought hers and held it close. Thus she 
learned that he w^as wounded by the eagle’s beak, 
and must needs find linen and soft wrappings for 
the wound. 

How^ can such tales be told ?. Shy glances and 
broken \vords, that mean at once nothing and so- 
much ! The touching of hands and thrills of ten- 
derness, and once a vagrant curl blew out upon his 


THE irIOUR OF GOYAULT. 


121 


face and was prisoned in his lips. The light waned 
within hex chamber, yet they lingered in soft, in- 
consequent talk, to which the moment lends both 
eloquence and translation. 

His hand had strayed once more to hers ; he 
pressed it on his brow, and saw a future. Algitha, 
there was no possibility of a future save with her. 
Golden-haired Algitha with the tender voice, her 
hand in his, her kiss upon his lips for ever and for 
ever, undying, starlit love like this! His fierce 
avowal answered even as he would have it answered. 
The two alone, agreed, and round them the warm 
world and night. 

Sorrow and hardship became but names at her 
dear side. How they would talk, how they would 
dream, how they would live, how they would die ! 
Death had no fears for him ; rather death was a 
friend, provided his cold voice called out their 
names together, so they might pass hand in hand 
across his borders. 

It was his hour, the hour when his rose had no 
thorn. The more glorious future glowed ascend- 
ing from the glorious present. The past.^ — That 
was not he, that pale shadow of himself which 
lived in his remembrance. Life had begun to- 
night ! 

He stood within a radiance wdiich must fade. 
Humanity soars but for brief flights; so pure and 
rare the air, we may not breathe it long. Goyault 
came back to earth and kissing, and he found both 
earth and kissing good. 


1 22 


THE HOUR OF GOYAULT. 


And so he left her, but he could not sleep, being 
afire with the tremulous sweetness of glances inter- 
changed. 

And across the rushing Channel Karadacf tossed 
in his fever dreams and babbled of the name of 
Algitha. 


CHAPTER V. 


i 


THK SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 

The morning broke iinsummerlike, with wind 
and scattered clouds and flying gleams of sunlight. 
Jobourg was all astir from early dawn ; stallions 
neighed on the high cliff, and from the blue shores 
of Herm boats were putting out upon’ the narrow . 
strip of wind-stung sea and heading for the sandy 
dunes of L’Ancresse. 

There on a wide space of common land between 
the woodland and the rising slopes of sand the lists 
were set. Near by to seaward a grey cromlech 
overlooked the land ; the dumb old- witness of van- 
ished gods, it watched to-day the faithful of another 
<freed gathering in scores to see justice done be- 
tween the innocent and guilt}^ by the strange arbi- 
trament of the sword. 

‘ Lines of folk moving across the island converged 
Hjn the little plain of L’Ancresse. High-featured 
Norman nobles riding at their ease, while serfs and 
hshers, tillers of the soil and slaves, hurried by on 
foot, giving a wide berth to the seigneurs and their 
follow'ing, for men-at-arms were short of temper 
and ready of offence. 

I'all barriers shut in the lists, but on the raised 


rilE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


I.'.'.l 

steps without the people gathered quickly, and a 
loud hum of voices rose which mingled with the 
booming of breakers on the beach. 

In those days a yearly Court composed of four 
Knight- Judges decided all the weightier causes in 
the isle. That year it numbered Jean de Jobourg 
and Sampson d’Anneville as belonging to the land, 
with other two sent for the purpose by the Suzerain 
from Normandy. These four riding together to an 
appointed place met the free tenants of the Duke,, 
and all others with disputes or wrongs who chose 
to refer them to the jurisdiction of the Court of 
Chevaliers. On horseback they heard all com- 
plaints and sifted evidence, and on horseback they 
recorded judgment. 

A hush fell on the populace as with clang of steel 
and trampling hoofs the four Knights wheeled their 
horses into line. 

As highest in importance, the suit of the great 
Norman seigneur, Gauthier de Morlaix, against a 
Saxon lady took precedence of all. 

The lord of Morlaix rode through the circle of 
country-folk with all the customary pomp and cir- 
cumstance of splendid armour and prancing steed, 
and woe to those who chanced to come beneath 
the heavy, hoofs ! 

His accusation against the Lady Algitha, daugh- 
ter of the English Earl Algar, sometime lord of 
Avening, was long drawn out and grave. He cojii- 
plained that this lady had bewitched him to his 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


<^reat hurt and misusage. She luid laid so strong a 
spell upon him that he could neither sleep nor eat 
or take pleasure in his life. Health and peace of 
mind had left him, nor could he gain ease from the 
torment of his thoughts, which ran ever upon one 
subject, the whicli was sore against his will for he 
was full weary of the lady and her love. These 
and many other evils had come upon him and his. 
retainers by reason of this same sorcery. Altliough 
the details were too numerous to be set down here^ 
none were omitted to the hearing of the Court. 

Afterward Earl Algar, in his daughter’s name,, 
denied the charge anil called upon the knights pres- 
ent that one should stand forth as her champion 
to uj)hold her cause and prove her innocence. 

Goyault advanced, his visor up, and all men saw 
his face, clear-hued, clear-eyed, burned by the storm 
of yesterday, strong and joyous as a young god's. 
He declared himself the cliampion of the I.ady 
Algitlia, and glanced toward her where she sat, 
pale and proud, * crowned with the si)arkle of a 
star, — and throwing his gauntlet upon the ground 
swore to defend her innocence with his body. 

Gauthier dc Morlaix raised the gage. Upon that 
the Court hastened to arrange the details of the 
combat according to their custom. Each knight 
was to be armed witli a long swortl and dagger, 
with shield and cuirass for defence. Also the bat- 
tle must begin at noon, the lists being set due east 
and west to secure each man equal ad\antage of 
sun and shade. 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRFSSF. 


1 26 

Upon this followed the oaths. Ooyault, with 
the Gospel in his right hand, took Gauthier’s left in 
Ids left, and so swore : 

“ Listen, thou whose hand I hold, 1, as represent- 
ing the Ladv Algitha, take solemn oath lliat I am 
not guilty of the crime that thou hast laid to my 
charge ; so may God and His saints be my aid : and 
here will I prove it with my body as this Court 
hath adjudged.” 

The riimin^ voice had echoes that men under- 

o o 

stood, and one and another glanced info each 
other’s eyes and smiled. 

The Holy Gospel passed' from hand to hand, 
between the central two, and changing grasp Gau- 
thier de Morlaix first gazed round with heavy, 
staring confidence, and took his oath : 

“ Listen in thy turn, thou whose hand I hold, 
thou art perjured in that thou hast denied my 
accusation. Thus God and His saints be my aid. 
And here will 1 prove it with my body as this 
Court hath adjudged.” * 

The grou})s broke up for the time, for noon 
though near at hand was not yet fully come. 

“ ’Tis a pity, for this Goyault of Gersay has a 
gallant air,” said a short red knight in Jean de 
jobourg’s ear. “What think you? Gauthier has 
fleshed over since last I saw him joust.” 

The tall Norman shook his head. 

“ The more weight behind the blow. It but 
strengthens him. He bores down like some great 


THE SANDS OF L'ANCRESSE. 


mammoth on his foe and crushes him by slieer 
force of impact.” 

“ But Goyault is swift and ready. Have you 
not heard of him The minstrels have suno Ids 
prowess in the isles this three years past.” 

“ I have heard. But can the wildcat fight the 
wolf? Nay! Our Lady help Goyault, for he is a 
dead man already. See yonder the Abbot of St. 
Michael’s with his cowled brethren ; already the 
monkish mouths droop to the fashion of the 
ma.sses for his soul. Some say that Karadac of 
Gersay holds him in high esteem.” 

The fox-red baron sighed. 

“ He is the Count’s highest knight and vassal. 
And hearken, Jean, were it not a witch, the Saxon 
is a rare maiden, by my troth ! ” 

“ Her beauty is her bane : God pity her, Gau- 
thier’s vengeance is always silent.” 

With noon the gale .sang louder and blew wild 
weather into the skies. All the land was filled w ith 
storm-lights. 

Impatiently the people waited for the battle that 
was to be done in the green openings between the 
furze and sand of L’Ancresse. At midday there 
was a call for silence. The crowd crushed forward, 
and breathing hotly clung together on the narrow 
standing-room, their clustering lines broken by the 
single rank of knightly faces, grave and keen. 

Oh, those Normans ! a race of large ambitions 
and yet temperate, ready to adopt the law' yet full 


128 THE SANDS OF L’ANCRFSSF. 

of moving turbulence. I'hey burst their banks and, 
overflowing south, conquered the world’s conquerors 
and found ample resting-places, whence again they 
poured out again to the Crusades, seeking fame and 
their souls’ welfare by deeds of blood, true pioneers 
of eastward ho ! Proud, crafty, ruthless, bigoted, 
superstitious and insuperable men, the prize of 
whose play was a smile, the penalty a warrior’s 
death. Little wonder that they loved so well those 
pale, passionate women, whose great hearts were 
worth a kingdom and whose light hands could close 
so cruelly upon a sceptre or a rival ! 

In the silence the combatants rode into the en- 
closure of the lists, one from either end. Gauthier 
de Morlaix as appellant from the east, Goyault from 
the west, and meeting in the middle the mailed 
hands clasped once more, and Goyault spoke 
aloud. 

“ Hear all ye and be my witnesses. That which 
I have said before the Judges is the truth. T bear 
no arms but those allowed me by the Court, nor do 
I carry any charm, talisman, or amulet. T put my 
trust in God first, secondly in the goodness of my 
cause, and lastly in my own valour. And I swear 
to do my utmost loyally, to force this man whom I 
hold to confess himself guilty or to kill him if he 
refuses so to do.” 

Gauthier loosed the other’s hand, then taking it 
afresh in a clanking grip of steel he repeated the same 
formula with deadly slowness. 


THK SANDS ON L'ANCRKSSE. 1J9 

This ceremony ended, two squires, coming^ for- 
ward, took hold upon their bridles' and led tlie 
horses back to the extreme ends of the arena. The 
crowd appraised the foes once more. Goyault was 
lighter, man and horse, but Gauthier was a mighty 
warrior. A glance of sunlight shot along the lists 
as Jean de Jobourg gave the signal to begin. 

“ Let them go ! ” he shouted twice, and the third 
time added : “ Let them go to do their dev^oir ! ” 

A thunder of hoofs and flashing armour, tliey 
rushed forth on one another, but Goyault, knowing 
wherein his weakness lay, avoided the full shock. 
He stooped before the Norman’s murderous blade 
and brought a blow home full on Gauthier’s throat, 
but the helmet fringe of chain-mail robbed it of 
its virtue ; while Gauthier’s sword catching in the 
edge of Goyault’s headpiece above the visor shore 
it from his head, and sent it whirling upwards 
through the air across the barrier. 

The roar of the lists went up and battered at the 
gates of heaven, drowning for a moment the groan- 
ing of the sea. 

The champions turned to meet again. Algitha 
sat with strained hands and watched. 

Another rush and yet another, blows struck and 
strongly parried, and in the third the snorting horses, 
j)lunging, furious, added confusion to the viewless 
interchange of blows. Then Morlaix’ charger reeled 
on a sudden pawing with its forefeet as if to crush 
its rival, tottered an instant at its height and fell 
back heavily upon the sand. 


130 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


Partly by luck, and in part by one huge effort of 
his enormous strength, Gauthier sprang clear. •- 

Another roar went up, and the Norman’s name 
burst from a hundred throats. 

Goyault reined backward and flung up his hand. 

“ I appeal to the Court. In fair fight my lord of 
Morlai.x’ steed has been overthrown. Therefore 1 
appeal that we two meet each other on our feet.” 

A hot murmur of dissent passed across the Nor- 
man group. 

“ No, ’tis unknightly ! ” 

“What.-' Fight like a slave on foot? Shame 
upon him for a knight ! ” 

But Gauthier, calling to his squire, unloosed his 
close helmet and made answer for himself. 

“ 1 appeal also to the Chevaliers that my foe’s 
prayer be granted.” 

A loud answer of protest and surprise rose again! 

Gauthier drew nearer to the barrier, and the wet 
white vehemence of his face wrought silence. 

“Those of you who are my good friends, wha 
have known me long, let be. Have I done aught 
unknightly since I took my vows that you should 
cry upon me thus? No! This perjured traitor 
and champion of the Foul Fiend has in his heart 
.some design of danger to overthrow me. l!)oes he 
dream that I should fail were I no longer aided by 
my charger’s power and strength ?-^And you, my 
friends, is my cause less good if I be.siride no- 
horse ? I am not a man of many words. Let be, I 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


31 


say. Therefore to you, knight judges of this Court 
I too appeal for leave to meet this perjured traitor 
on my feet. ’’ 

“As man to man ! Say who can better tliat, nn' 
masters ?” cried a voice from among the crowd. 

Silence was cried, and nuiny a dumb head was 
rapped by those who kept the barriers, yet the peo- 
ple, laughed and pressed more closely forward to 
behold which way the victory would turn under the 
new conditions. 

Gauthier put on his helmet and stood prepared, a 
thick, impenetrable, perilous figure. And now (joy- 
ault was the assailant. He moved round his foe 
with the lithe hunter’s step, and, stroke upon stroke, 
the clear, clean ring of steel rangharplH^e above the 
deep diapason of the sea. 

It was Goyault’s intent to spend his adversary’s 
strength and breath in rapid skirmishing, but Gau- 
thier slowly overbore the other man’s intent by 
force of single purpose. •• 

Goyault leaped gaily into the heart of battle, but 
his opponent gathered himself ready and readier 
for the final stroke. With sword that played 
steadily but purposefully round about his shield, 
the great Norman bored down opposition. Tims 
and thus had he ere now smashed men like egg- 
shells, and Goyault, thrusting and parrying, knew 
that now at length he had need of all liis light- 
footedness and his skill. Gauthier was breathing 
hard, but Goyault, with helmless head and all his 


32 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


curls bare, began to feel his advers-ary’s single aim 
tell upon his defence. He had met the aurochs in 
full charge, and now he knew again the same mad- 
dened pressure as the grim Norman hurtled on his 
resistless way. 

In that wild moment of distress Goyault under- 
stood that it was in Gauthier s heart to shame him, 
to drive him to the barrier, and there pin him 
through like some poor bird transfixed upon a scul- 
lion’s .skewer, and Goyault laughed aloud. So the 
mellow laugh rose like some strange echo of the 
strenuous battle. 

The men-at-arms were howling Gauthier’s name, 
but there were women too with tear-wet eyes who 
prayed for Goyault’s life. 

Sword poised over him, trampling him backward.s, 
the Norman, sure of conquest, rushed upon him. 
Goyault dropped upon his knee, and flung up his 
blade to meet the downward cut, then swift as the 
wildcat to which they had likened him, sprang up- 
wards inside the Norman’s guard and buried his 
dagger in the joint of armour between neck and 
shoulder. 

Gauthier de Morlaix stood one moment erect and 
still, then the temseness and the life went from him, 
and he lurched forward on the trodden turf. 

Dizzily Goyault turned ; the huge form lay prone 
face downwards, the sword flung out upon the 
ground ten paces off. 

Goyault stooped to draw his adversary’s dagger 


THE SANDS OF L’ANCRESSE. 


33 


from its sheath, then called upon him to avow the 
truth. But no answer came. 

In sonorous tones Jean de Jobourg pronounced 
the adjudgment of the Court. Goyault raised his 
face to heaven. Grey and dark the clouds rolled 
in full-bosomed procession low overhead, and the 
victor, bareheaded, battle-flushed, thrilled beneath 
the breaking rain, for Algitha was saved. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE ORDEAL OF (iO VAULT. 

If man were permitted by the Power that is 
above to look back witii opened eyes upon liis love 
or loves of earth, he would scarce believe how high 
towards hea\ en they soared at times, nor yet how 
low they sank in fleshly tlepths. The love of man- 
hootl in strenuous years has its foundations in the 
flesh, so it is ordered ; tlu; flesh indeed is but an 
anchor to hold us against the winds and waverings 
of the wayward s{)irit. We are told, and at one 
time of his life at any rate each man who is of 
much account believes it, that every soul has its re- 
lated soul somewhere in the great world. Goyault 
had never heard this ancient theory perhaps, but by 
the natural process of the human heart he had 
learned love's universal lesson and believed. Al- 
githa, by right of choice and conquest, by love’s 
election and the ties of memory, by kisses and by 
vows, was his, body and soul, not Karadac’s. 

And yet there stood against this fact his oath 
and Karadac’s fierce agony of blindness and his 
trust ! 

“ I charge you tell her of what temper is my 
love, that henceforward there will be but one face 


THE ORDEALOF GOVAULT. 



upon my darkness, and say that I would choose 
blindness with that one memory rather than a life 
of daily sight without it.” And again : “ That 
must reach her heart an she be woman. But re- 
member, Goyault, say 1 love her well and now I 
have nothing left but her alone.” 

On this Goyault turned to self again, and the 
old vexed question rose. Would he choose blindness 
and Algitha, or — i There was no answer. It 
seemed that in losing the living vision of her beauty, 
he would half lose Iier. Yet Karadac had said — 
Enough ! That thought he could not follow. For 
himself he would take Algitha and Hell. Battles 
and wanderings and the long, fierce hunt laid no 
more stress upon his heart. He wanted naught 
but Algitha, and to rest upon past deeds and the 
great name he had won. Of what good that name 
save to do her honour ? 

On the turmoil of this thought Earl Algar en- 
tered. 

“ Aye, Gauthier de Morlaix lives, and though 
sore hurt it is said he will recover. Before that day 
comes I and mine must be far away,” and the Earl 
turned a shrewd questioning eye on Ids companion. 

But Goyault gave no answer save by Ids troubled 
mien. 

“The Chevaliers of the Court have asses.sed a 
fine of half his goods against Morlaix, and all that 
will I give to the man who wins my daughter. Al- 
githa, eveti in her exile, goes to no husband im- 


136 THE ORDEAL OF GOVAULT. 


dowered according to her liigh degree. 1 lie girl is 
fair, and but for this maggot in lier brain had wed 
into some noble house in England.” 

Still Goyaultheld his peace. Mow to decide ?— 
Love on this side, loyalty on tliat ! So tliey swung 
a maddening pendulum ot vacillation. 

“ We owe you much, ' Earl Algar wandered on ; 
‘‘ and it is but fit that Algitha should thank you ere 
you take ship again for Gersay.” 

Goyault snatched at the offer. Oh, for one mo- 
ment’s peace to settle his resolve ! Yet when Algar 
left him, a fresh agony of doubt tore at his heart 
and he was terribl)' alone. Before him swept the 
face of Karadac, a fierce face with blind eyes, that 
seemed to comped the manhood and loyalty within 
him. He would give up all and die ! — would God 
he could ! The trouble was — as it is with most of 
Us — he must give up all and live. A one-winged 
life that ne\x'rmore could fly and knew not how to 
creep. 

Holding to this resolve he found himself with 
Algitha, lie scarce knew how. She stood before the 
window through which in those wild moments of 
the summer night his kisses and love-words had 
come to her. Despairingly he leaned against the 
wooden wall and the whirlwind of doubts and of 
desires once more beset him. 

Seeing he did not speak, Algitha turned and 
there lit upon him so sweet and shy a glance he 
dared not look again. 


THE ORDEAL OF GOYAULT. 


'37 


The girl’s face altered. Seeing him so changed 
and pale, she sprang to his side. 

“ You are wounded I — Come, there is a leech still 
in the Castle.” She took his hands and would have 
drawn him to the door. 

“ I have a wound. ’Tis nothing. Algitha, listen 
while I have the will and the resolve to tell you.” 

She stepped back a pace or two, and a proud look 
dawned in her blue eyes. 

“ I have a confession to make — I have deceived 

I M . 

you ! 

Her bosom rose and fell. What was this that 
Goyault must say, this of which he spoke so halt- 
ingly ? 

“ Say on.” 

“ Karadac, the Count of Gersay, sent you a mes- 
sage by my hand. He loves you ! ” 

“ Loves me? It cannot be. Never has he seen 

I >> 

me I 

‘‘ But he has seen you — seen that picture which 
you sent across the sea to bid us to your aid. And 
having seen it~-who could wonder— he loved you ! ” 

“ Other men have loved me also, but that is 
nought to me,” she said coldly. 

“ But Karadac is like none other,” Goyault hur- 
ried on. “ I have told you what he is — ” 

“ Not again, as I beseech you, sieur Goyault! I 
arn awearied of your Karadac. 

“ Nay, you must hear me, for my oath’s sake— I 
have told you how he rode, both he and I, through 


THE ORDEAL OF GOVAUET. 


all the haunted forest land of Gersay, and mid- 
night some evil struck him blind. Hlind, bethink 
you of it, in all the splendour of his manhood and 
his newfound love !— In the darkness, waiting on 
the forest edge, I watched the great storm gather 
and rush up from the western sea. 1 here in a 'flash 
I saw the Count, and so led him to a refuge— and 
he was blind!” c 

‘‘ Blind ?— Alas, poor Count, 1 can be sorry for 
him ! But what has that to do with you and me? ” 

* The red demure lips hardly held their white smile. 

“All, everything ! ”. Goyault was desperate. 
“ He sent me.” 

“ Ah, now we come to the heart of it ! ” Algitha 
spoke in another tone. “ Wln^ did you not tell me 
sooner?” ' 

“ Because I prayed that I might die ! I prayed 
that Gauthier might slay me, and I him.” 

“ What was: your master’s message ? ” she asked 
bitterly. 

Goyault gripped the beam beside him and broke 
into fierce words. 

“ He dreamed he saw you at your window wav- 
ing him onward. And he bade me go— since he 
could not fight for you, being blind— and fulfil his 
dream. ‘ Tell her of me,’ he said, ‘ and of my love, 
and tell her well. Go, I leave my honour to your 
hands, which I had never thought to give to any 
man’s keeping. Guard it and bring it back to me. 
Go as my friend, and when you have conquered 


THE ORDEAL OF GO VAULT. 


‘39 

lead her to me !-— 1 charge you, tell her of what 
temper is my love. That henceforward there will 
be but one face upon my darkness, and say that I 
would choose blindness with that one memory 
rather than a life of daily sight without it. Say 
that 1 love her well, and now have nothing left but 
her alone.’ ” 

1 hen fell a long silence. Had he seen Algitha’s 
face, he would have known how pit)’ dwelt upon it, 
but after her glance fell on Goyault ami her mouth 
hardened. 

So 1 am to be the wife of blind Count Karadac ! ” 

Goyault shuddered. 

“His here,” he .said ; “perchance: there, I had 
prayed mine.” 

“ There ? — where ? ” 

He threw out his hands toward the sea and 
heaven. 

“ There, where the souls of the dead go, be it 
beneath the sea, or as the Monks say above the sun. 
I know not where, but there ! ” 

“ We might fail to find each other — there,” she 
said in soft low tones. 

“ No ! by my soul, were I free to love you, I 
should find you there behind the stars.” 

A little smile crept back about her lips. 

“ What .shall I believe ?.” she went on. “ Yester- 
eve you swore you were own man, and to-day be- 
hold! I find you are Lord Karadac’s — Do you 
come from Karadac ? ” 


140 riiK ORDKAL OF GOYAULT. 

“ Yes, he sent me.” 

“ You told me another story— when we met last 
night ; ” her voice sank. 

That was true also.” 

“It cannot be.” 

“ The Count told me he had seen your picture 
and he loved.” 

“ And you held your peace ? ” 

“ For the moment, for I was minded before that 
to come myself and be your champion. Afterward 
when the blindness struck him, 1 could not speak.” 

“ I think, Goyault, that you do not love me well.”^ 

“ Not worthily, lady, oh, not worthily, but God 
knows I love you well ! ” he cried. 

“ Yet I am for Karadac?” 

“ And I will seek death against the Saracen, 
For you — O Algitha, Karadac or the cloister.” 

“ A cloister ? — Am I such as they make nuns of ? ” 

“ Alas, no, but therein lies my fault.” 

“What, am I to live that pale life? Hallowed,, 
yes — but hateful ! Cold and buried from earth’s 
smiles and joys, all prayer and pain. In truth, 
Goyault, it seems to me that you should save me 
from it.” 

“ My oath — my oath ! ” 

She laughed very softly, a silver bell that ceased 
as soon as heard. He had heard her laugh so be- 
fore for utter happiness. 

“ Your oath does not bind me,” she said tri- 
umphantly. 


THE ORDEAL OJ' GOYAULT. 


Hr 

Goyault started and looked at her at last. 

“ You will not go to him ? ” 

“ No ! ” Her blue eyes clouded with a mist of 
tears. “ And then, you know, they’ll burn me as a 
witch because I cannot love.” 

“ But you do love — ” Goyault cried out in ex- 
ultation and stopped. 

Algitha turned away. 

“ Lady Algitha, you do well to hate me and to 
scorn me, for I have sinned against you — a sin with- 
out excuse.” 

“ Without excuse ? — ” she repeated, and a side- 
long look met his. 

“Only that I loved you,” he said dejectedly. 

“ 1 have known women who would hold that fair 
excuse for a worse fault.” 

“ Thanks be to heaven you can forgive me ! Yet 
I cannot repent. The sin, if sin it were to love you 
overmuch, I do not repent. I love you now, and 
would not alter it ! ” 

“Nor 1.” ‘ 

“ Algitha ! ” ' 

She was pulsing close against him, and his arms 
closed about her as if it were for evermore. 

It is a moment of enchantment when we are able 
to forget there are millions of such kissed in the 
world — and yet not quite such, we think and pray. 
Yet in the unwearying round of youth, two still 
agree there are no others, nor have been, and are 
just as happy believing in a fantas\^ as in the trutlu 
Is it not often belief tliat makes a faiu'\' truth? 


142 


THE ORDEAL OE GOVADLT. 


“How did 1 win you to my love?’ he whis- 
pered presently, his lips lost in the golden tangles 
of her liair. 

“ 1 know not.” Tlien laughing up at him : “ Was 
it a sin in truth ? ” 

“ Yes, dear, and 1 must yet be punished for it.” 

“ I think tiot so,” she answered, “ for it is so old 
a sin the angels have forgotten it.” 

“Sweet! — Have you loved me then — ” 

. “ Since first I saw you tilting in the meadows 
years and years ago ! ” 

“ riiree years — a lifetime to you, Algitha ! Dear- 
est, 1 li.ive loverl you too.” 

“ \’et \ <)U would have given me to Karad.ic ? ” 

“ I lad 1 not sworn ? ” 

“What is a man’s first duty, — to his liege or to 
his love ? ” slie asked him. 

“ It is hard to tell,” he murmured sadly. 

“ When a man loves, he knows.” 

“ Is that so, sweet ? Why then, I do know 
now.” 

“ Goyault,” slie placed her hands against his 
breast to look at him, “ your Count boasts of the 
temper of his love : That he would choose blind- 
ness with me to sight without. That is a (tuestion 
1 would put you also. Answer me.” 

The young knight gazed at her in a kiml of hor- 
ror. That Algitha should find his inmost thought 
and face him with it almost appalled him. How 
had she read him ? l^y wlnit witchcraft had love 


THE ORDEAL OF GOVAULT. 


fathomed his soul? Ho put her away from him 
and covered his eyes. 

“ It is true. I am unworthy of you, Algitlia. I 
love you, or so it appears to me, with every thought 
<iiid fibie of me. 1 could not love more. \ ou are 
to me my one desire in life or death. J see none 
other in my future but you alone. Yet 1 cannot 
say like Raradac tliat 1 would choose blindness 
rather 1 cannot say it, lor the sight of you and all 
your fairness is part of you. I love you as you are 
because 1 can see you and rejoice in all your lo\ e- 
liness! Remembrance is not sight. I wguld hold 
you in my arms but could not see the flush waver 
on your soft cheek, nor'watch a thousand times tlu^ 
curl of scarlet lip which I adore — nor meet v* en- 
dear eyes’ answer to my own ! ” 

Algitha threw herself into his arms and dune' to 
him. 

“ So would I be loved ! O my Goyault, love me 
ever thus. Your Count, he loves in dreams ! — So 
might an angel love or some cold saint, like our 
holy King Edward in England. Nay, nay, I would 
be loved for my fairness, as you think me fair; for 
my lips and eyes and all you praise in me. I am a 
woman born of earth, yet I can love to my life’s 
end. But I need an earthly lover. As for the 
Count of Gersay, I will none of him. His love is 
but a whimsy of the brain. I am not she he loves. 
She is a vision or a star. She dwells in mid-air, and 
never can he tempt Her down to earth. But I am a 


144 


THE ORDEAL OE GOVAULT. 


Saxon lady, who would be wife to Goyault of St. 
Ouen’s and Gros-Nez, or else die ! — We will sail to- 
gether, as you said last night — sail across the sum- 
mer sea and tell him all the truth, and, if he be as 
you say a noble knight, he will forgive us.” 

And Goyault answered her with tender words. 
Then drew her back to those old formulas of love, 
old as the world, newborn on every tongue, the tire- 
less iteration of the ages. 

“ Say that you love me, Algitha, say it once 
again, one small word, yet enough to fashion my 
life upon.! ” 

So they talked in the summer dusk, but Goyault s 
happiness was bitter-sweet because of Karadac. 



* 



I 



\ 


1 



f 

I- 


J 



i 


1 



BOOK III. 




r 





i CHAPTER I. 

THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 

July was closing in a quivering glare of heat. 
Beneath the sun and clear broad moon alike the sea 
lay radiant to the horizons around Gros-Nez, With- 
in the Castle walls those hot and weary days chased 
remorseless nights, long, breathless, fevered. 

At this far-distant time none can tell what acci- 
dent befell the Count in his wild night-ridiug. 
Struck by some lovv-diooping bough or‘blinded liy 
the lightning, — who can • say ? We only read tliat 
Goyault found him, 'fallen from his horse, and witli 
a vvOund across his brows. Then followed long ex- 
posure to the blustering witid on the Castle battle- 
ments. Eever gripped him and for weeks he hov- 
ered in detiriuiri and weakness on the borderland of 
life. . • 

Throughout those long-draw'n summer weeks tw(j 
faces watched unceasingly beside his bed. Gundred- 
dumb and gentle in her tendance, seldom left him- 
She appeared to need nO rest, ho food, no sleep. 
With her sad eyes fixed upon- the drawn disfigured 
features' she watched as if she cOuld not gaze 
enough on that which might soon be wrapped aw:iy 
in dust frorri human sight for ever; 


14 S I HE GUILE OE TONSTAIN. 

And while she watched the Count, Tonstaiti 
watched her. With ever-growing insight, he passed 
in and out, reading the subtle secrets of the heart 
writ large upon the woman’s face. And secondarily 
he iiad interest in noting the phases of the fever 
which wrung the strong man dry of the juice of life. 
This was no tedious interval to him : the drama of 
suffering and sorrow playing out before his eyes ab- 
sorbed and puzzled him. Open and public as was 
life in those days, this astute observer had never 
before been given the opportunity of studying so 
strange a tragedy of passion as that which now en- 
grossed him. Without pity he turned the keen light 
of his intelligence upon the anxious joy, the grief, 
the tormented jealousy, and the wild periods of re- 
morse which worked themselves out so visibly and at 
such woeful personal expense in Gundred. She 
grew more gaunt, more lined, more sallow-sad as 
time went on. Her soul was a dark chaos of misery 
over which the spirit of love moved and brooded. 
To hang above the sick man, to be free to touch 
him, to tend him day and night, was bliss ; but the 
parched unquiet tongue called always upon Algitha, 
the bony hands clung to hers because he dreamed 
he held those of Algitha. He would caress the 
dark bowed head and praise its golden glory, or 
whisper of love in a worship of admiration that in 
its sad inaptitude brought the dark colour to her 
brows. 

A commixture of feelings and emotions so op- 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


149 


posed wrought out in paroxysms of unalloyed an- 
guish. Sometimes as she lay for a moment’s rest 
upon the floor beside the couch of Karadac she 
wondered dimly how one so spent in body as her- 
self could yet suffer so acutely. A gnawing worm 
of jealousy and remorse waked for ever in her 
breast. To a weaker nature some alleviation might 
hav^e come, but that could never be with Gundred. 
To the last shred of conscious life she would hold to 
that which she desired. Death offered no relief to 
her, oblivion held no temptation to lie down at 
peace for ever. No ! life meant hopeless pain, but 
her sentient heart could still enclose the image of 
Karadac. She would not have bought peace at the 
cost of forgetfulness. Anything but loss of him, 
anything but that ! Her very love gave her a posses- 
sion in him, and to that she would keep fast, though 
with it slie hugged a martyrdom to her breast. 

One stifling evening Tonstain entered the dark 
room in the corner tower where for many weeks 
Karadac had lain. Gundred looked up, her finger 
on her lips. 

“Hush! he sleeps.” 

Tonstain came forward and stood for. some 
moments gazing down upon the drawn dark face 
and closed eyes of the sleeper. Bearded and haggard 
and wasted, Karadac’s high features stood out in 
ghastly prominence, a jagged pucker of reddened 
flesh crossed his brow. He had upon him to the 
full that changed aspect, the peculiar ill-favour 


.'50 


THE GUILE OE TONSIAIN. 


which lon^' illness leaves as a brand upon its vic- 
tims. I'onst.iin reT;arded him with a feeling akin 
•to disgust, iresh as he was from news of a bride- 
groom whose comeliness and daint\' grace all meji 
were praising. 

For the first time I'onstain on beholding the ten- 
derness of Gundied's attitude and expression felt a 
strong throb of wonder. That she should continue 
to adore this marred relic of manhood, this past 
clay, was perhaps tyi^ical of her sex, but Gundred, 
he was good enough to consider, was not a woman 
merely, one who could fulfil' her life with love; she 
owned a woman’s nature but her mind trenched on 
.the higher level of the man’s. 1 fence the course 
she might pursue under the stress of present diffi- 
culties had been of enormous interest to him. He 
jhad watched her, speculating from hour to hour 
how siion her intelligence vvoukl shake itself free 
from tjie yoke of womanhood. That, broadly 
speaking, he was justified in his expectation had 
])(a;\vabundantly proved time and again. Women 
with large br.iin pow’er have, by the law of com- 
])en‘<ation ])erhaps. little hearts, contemptibly little 
ofpen. Hut Gundred was one of the exceptions, 
that most unhappy . amalgam where the woman’s 
heart is great enough to overrule the clear-reasoning' 
head, : . 

. Th e light was dim., and from without the mur- 
muring of the tide came very softly. So still the 
chamber was that Tonstain’s thoughts ran on lin- 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


151 

broken. A quid inovcinent roused him, Gun- 
dred, upon her knees, her worn luuuls pressed coiu 
vulsively upon her breast, was praying in a tension 
of supplication. She had seen a change [)ass over 
the sick man’s face, a slow relaxing of the muscles, 
the smoothing out (jf fretted lines, as lie sank into 
repose deeper and dce|)er, a sleep that touched 
upon the verge of death. 

The silence throbbed in Tonstain’s ears, llis 
busy mind leaped onwards and foresaw the conflict 
and the troublous times which loomed aheail. 
Karadac’s breathing grew fainter and more shallow ; 
the grave was yawning for him. If he died not 
now in the exhaustion of this first rep<ise, he must 
die later when the shock of disappointment and dis- 
illusion shook his soul free from the loostmed ties of 
flesh. For ronstain had just heard the news from 
Grenezay, brought by a fisher-boat, of Goyault’s 
wondrous victory and of how enchantment no 
longer held the Saxon lady, who these four weeks 
gone had been wedded to her champion of the lists. 

When Karadac came to hear these things, as 
hear he must since his first waking question wandd 
be of them, all must end as far as Tonstain’s 
interest was concerned. The map of human feeling, 
coloured with blood through all its vivid traceries, 
now displayed before his curious gaze, would be 
closed for ever, Karadac’s wild love quenched in 
grave dust, and Gundred’s medley of eiTiotions, her 
travestv of hope, could but sink back to silent, 


152 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


dull-eyed grief. This sliould not be I I he quick 
thought stirred in Tonstain, Karadac must be saved. 
But how? Emergency stimulated tlie scheming 
brain. Howto save Karadac? He glanced indif- 
ferently at the two still figures in their tlim corner, 
and a fantastical design, so bold, so fraught with 
desperate danger, so original, and promising so rare 
a venture into unknown and delicate entanglements 
of feeling, sprang full-formed in his mind. A thin 
smile grew to firm intention on his lips as he 
rapidly ran over all the obstacles that lay in the 
path of his resolve. A whispered word here, an 
order there, persuasion playing upon hate and love,, 
envy ami self-interest as occasion and the case re- 
quired, these he could trust himself to use, for of all 
the arts whereby men may be led he knew himself 
the master. 

An unheard-of scheme, mad some would call it,, 
and perilous beyond imagination, but for himself he 
was content to take the risk. A philosopher, he 
was aware that anything worth having in this world 
exacts a heavy payment. Fate might not spare 
him when the day of retribution came, but what of 
that? To probe, to know, to vivisect the heart, 
was his sole ambition. The means lay near his 
hand to knit up the lives about him into a new and 
horrible complexity such as no man had heard of. 
That he would do, and rejoice in the doing, though 
Death himself thrust in his hand amongst the rank 
confusion. 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


^53 


Foursquare the game spread itself before him, 
Karadac and Gundred, Goyault and his bride, but 
it was about the first two that his imagination lin- 
gered. Goyault, brave, sunny-hearted and popular, 
with a strand or two of nobler feeling than the 
common woven into his heart ; Algitha, beautiful 
— yes, beautiful as a boy’s first dream, but a woman 
and no more when all was said : both pleasant to 
the eye and good as the world went, but lacking the 
tragic strength of Gundred as Goyault lacked the 
spell of Karadac’s unfathomed nature. 

A gull cried hoarsely as it swept past in the 
afternoon glow and cast a fleeting zigzagof shadow 
across the deepset lance of window. At the sound 
the sick man stirred and moaned, and his writhen 
hand crept outwards feebly as if seeking another 
clasp. 

“ Algitha, if you be not a dream, kiss me,” the 
murmur, husky and dry, could scarce be heard ; 
“ kiss me this once before . . . I . . . die.” 

The kneeling woman had laid her fingers in his 
with a touch of soft caress, but now she hesitated. 

Karadac’s sighing breath brought one more word. 

“ Algitha.*’ 

Gundred flung up one look at Tonstain’s peering 
eyes, a tortured look defiant of his scorn, then laid 
her lips fondly on the fever-darkened lips that in 
the sorrowful enchantment of blindness sought her 
kisses. A moment later Karadac slept again, .smil- 
ing in his rest. 


i54 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAiN. 


Tonstain waited, knowing that the Co uiit!s sleep 
niust soon drop a^ain to profound dcptlis of uncori- 
sciousness. Then beckoning to Gundred he drew 
lier aside to the farthest corner of the room. 

“ Gundred, wliat think you will happen when Goy- 
ault returns and' the Count recovers health and 
strength, as perchance he may ? 

“ VVhatrGod wills,” she answered weariedly'. 

And perchance Goyault will bring back with 
him the Saxon girl. What then ? ” 

“ Shall 1 care then ? ” Iter eyes widened and she 
smiled with some disdain ; “ my day will be over.” 

“ Will \ ou give to his arms ” — he nodded towards 
the sleeping Count — “that Algitha whom but now 
you personated ? ” • ♦ 

“Tonstain de Priaulx, how vile a thing you are ! 
Can I not read your subtle quest ? Cut to the bone, 
torture the stricken heart, lay, your envenomed 
touch upon the quivering sore! The.se are your di- 
versions, and all to feed a hungry inquisition of the 
miml, a peeping curiousness which would pierce 
Heaven’s high secrets if it dared ! ” 

“ Nay, lady, I have no traffic with the other 
world ; to know what there is of this contents me,” 
lie .said derisively. 

“ y\nd dwells not Heaven in a loving heart ? ” she 
asked passionately. 

“ Why no, from observation I would say there is 
oftenest Hell.” 

“ Poor soul ! ” was her unexpected rejoinder ; 
“ you cannot understand.” 


155 


I'llE GUILE OL TONSTAIN. 

Bill. 1 can see,” he lejoiiied pointedh-. 

** Aye, and you hear ; but if one spoke befoie \ ou 
in an unknown tongue your hearing could not help 
you to the meaning.” 

“ It may be so,” said I'onstain with good-humour, 
and paused to let the subject pass. “ Then le.t me 
speak of that which I do know. Listen. — \-ou kissed 
the. Count but now, he dreaming )’ou .were his 

Algitha.V 

‘‘You think to shame me? You cannot — my 
time of shame is past.” 

“ But wliat of Karadac when he learns the truth ? ” 

She winced. 

“It is done ; the first time and the last. His life 
hung in the balance at that moment.” 

“ Yes, it is done, but will lie forgive ? ” 

“ I bear my own burden, Tonstain,” she replied 
with dignity. 

“Then hear me. At last news has come from 
Grenezay. Goyault has overthrown Gauthier de 
Morlaix and saived Earl Algar’s daughter.” 

“A full month agone, as I count ! i^'or he Itas 
lain here four weeks sick to death. And why does 
Goyault linger?” she questioned sharply. 

“ Perhaps it would become us to remember the 
lady is most beautiful, and springs, if report speak 
truly, from a family which has won favour in high 
places before now — aye, and, further, despised the 
favour won!” . j 

Gundred frowned at him, her thick brows almost 
meeting. 


156 THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


“ 1 perceive that you are talking to some end, 
Tonstain. I would you were come at it ! ” 

“ Have you not heard the tale of this girl’s kins- 
man Brithric Maude, son of Algar, lord of the 
honour of Gloucester? Indeed, few know it, but I 
was at the Court of Flanders when this tall youth 
came with an Embassy from England. We sur- 
named him Snow, so like to snow was his white 
skin ; and long golden locks fell curling to his 
shoulders in the Saxon fashion. His height and 
marvellous comeliness set him apart from other 
men, therefore a great lady of the Court saw and 
loved him.” 

“ Was she also beautiful ? ” Gundred showed a 
sudden interest. 

“ Dark-eyed, with clear and noble features. Her 
love so gained upon her that she sent a message, or 
as some say, a letter, to the Saxon, wherein she 
gave him hope that he might win her, although the 
blood in her proud veins was royal.”. 

“Beautiful and royal too! So he won her? 
Well, it is a story of a woman’s gain ; for that I 
like it.” 

“ Stay, the issue runs otherwise. He did not win 
her, for he would not woo.” 

Gundred spoke coldly, “ This is an allegory 
after all. What does it signify?” 

“ It is a truth, no allegory. A rare instance. 
But why more hard to believe than the common 
story of a sordid or a sensual yielding to her will? 


THE GUILE OF TONSTAIN. 


*57 


Beautiful and royal she was, so that many princes 
sought her favour, yet this English churl would 
none of her.” 

“ And the lady ? ” 

“ Wedded another lord, who dragged her in the 
mire and with his stirrup-leather taught her to 
adore him.” 

“ It is an idle tale ! The Lady Matilda — ” 

“ Wife of our most noble suzerain William, duke 
of Normandy, once wooed and lost the kinsman of 
this witch Algitha ! ” 

Gundred pondered awhile upon the story before 
she spoke again. 

'' Was Goyault Avounded that he delays to bring 
this lady home ? ” 

“ They come shortly. But there is other news 
from Greneza3^” 

Gundred stood looking at him. 

“You have some meaning. Let me hear it and- 
have done. What is this that you would have me 
know ? " 

“ Algitha will not wed Count Karadac.” 

“Will not?” Gundred challenged furiously, her 
nostrils curved, her black eyes full of fire. “ Will 
not ? — By all the saints, she shall ! ” 


5 .^ 


CHAPTER II. 
love’s changeling. 

Tonstain, for all his deep knowledge of the hu- 
man heart, stood amazed. Here was a new Giin- 
dred, not that poor unhappy jealous thing who 
t moved in timid tendance round the sick man’s 
couch. A new Gundred who, with a regal insist- 
ence, brushed aside the refusal of her rival and 
swore that Karadac should gain his heart’s desire, 
lonstain’s grosser calculations had never reached, 
nor could ever grasp, the sum of selflessness and 
greatness which sprang to active life within this 
woman's breast when, knowing the Count’s dire 
need she made ready to force Algitha into his arms. 

Tonstain’s prying soul sent out another tentacle. 

‘•That is not all. She loves Goyault, or so they 
say.” 

“ Slie has not seen the Count,” Gundred answered 
confidently. 

“ Goyault, as you remember, is a comely knight, 
and gay and debonnair.” 

She drew her head erect. 

“ Aiul is he not comely ? ” she turned towards 
the couch. “ Who could compare them? Goyault 
in sooth ! -a chattering sparrow to a falcon ! ” 


LOVE’S CHANGELINC;. 


159 


The man raised his eyebrows. As was Gundrcd, 
such are the few, the rarest and the best, who hav- 
ing seen one vision of Love see nauglit else but 
him reflected even in grey hair and wrinkles to their 
lives’ end. 

“ Earl Algar’s daughter has been proved no 
witch, but that she owns a will is indisputable. 
And report says she has most openly declared she 
will not wed the Count of Gersay.” 

“ Wait until she comes,” said Gundred with Sad 
faith. “ He will find means to persuade her,” 

For sake of argument 1 will admit that might 
have been had she not already been persuaded.” 

“ What ? — Then she shall be taught to change her 
mind.” 

“A four weeks’ marriage puts aside all talk of 
change.” 

A sallow pallor spread over Gundred’s face. 

“ Married~and to Goyault ? You need not name 
him — -To Goyault ! The traitorous thought was in 
his mind before he left our shore ! ” Then her fear 
was uttered. “When the -Count hears of this he 
will die !” She rocked herself to and fro, filled, as 
it seemed to Tonstain’s crafty eye, with remorseful 
sorrow. But she had always loved the Count well 
and been faithful to him — what cause for remorse 
had she ? • The scent of a new secret flattered him- 

“ I think that he will die,” agreed Tonstain coldly; 
“ unless you save him.” • • • 

Gundred looked up sharply at the words. 


i6o LOVE’S CHANGELING. 

“Alas, not mine the power ! Yet would to God 
that I could save him, for it is I have laid him 
low ! ” 

The man breathed short, yet tried, to hide his 
eagerness. 

“ Are you also a witch, lady ? ” 

“ A witch ? — no, no. Only an unloved, bitter 
jealous woman who prayed wild curses on the head 
she loved, and whose prayer was granted ! ” 

Then Tonstain felt indeed the stars in their 
courses fought . for him. Gundred sank upon a 
bench beside the wall, and laboured to still the 
sobs that tore her breast. She was all woman now, 
swayed by tempe.stuous emotion like a girl, and 
having neither force nor reason left wherewith to 
oppose his purpose. 

“If that be so, 3^011 owe our lord a wide and deep 
amend, lady. It lies with you to save him at a sore 
cost of suffering and danger to 3^ourself.” 

She uncovered her flushed face. 

“ You are so cruel, Tonstain, that at this moment 
I believe you do but mock m3’ miseiy,” she said. 

“ I swear to you b3^ all I hold most sacred that I 
speak the simple truth.” 

“ Tell me quickly. I would die for him ! ” , 

“ My remedy may tax you more heavily than 
that,” he returned; “hear it. In his long raving 
dreams our lord Count has imagined the' presence 
of the woman he loves. We know not how much 
he may remember when he wakes to his full reason. 


LOVK’S CHANGELING. i6i 

But, however that may issue, it is most certain he 
will ask for news of her or demand that she be 
brought to have speech with him. How shall we 
answer ? ’’ 

Gundred lay back as one exhausted, her heavy 
eyes downcast. She shook her head despairingly. 

“ Our good lord has lost his sight, and on that 
loss do 1 rely to save him.” 

The woman raised herself to gaze up with a 
strained anxiety into those inscrutable eyes. 

“There is only one way.” Tonstain’s delibera- 
tion penetrated to her brain. “ When he shall ask 
for Algitha, she must come to him.” 

“ What — Goyault’s wife ! ” she cried out. 

“ No, lady, another Algitha, who will seem as 
fair and dear to his broken sense as the Algitha he 
loved in that fatal picture at Gouray.” 

“ Deceive him ? — take advantage of his helpless- 
ness! — add a crown to Goyault’s treachery, give 
him for wife a falsehood ; lie to him, dare to touch 
with our perfidious hands that which we know he 
holds most sacred dear ! ” She stood upright and 
motioned him away. “ Go, Tonstain, and on your 
knees ask Heaven to forgive the treason that you 
planned ! ” 

“ Is it a treason to desire to save his life ? ” de- 
manded Tonstain calmly ; “ treachery to the State 
to keep a ruler whom we ill can spare while 
troubles grow daily at duke William’s Court? Be 
patient, lady ; there is more here than treason. 


i 62 


LOVE’S CHANGELING. 


When all’s said, 1 am but urging that which you 
have done*” 

“Enough of that! 1 was wrong, it may be, ft 
was the treachery of an instant, but the temptation 
came upon me to save him.” 

“ True, and I called no hard names.” 

Gundred sat down once more; the apathy of 
spent vital force weighed heavy on her. 

“ Tell me all your mind. Heaven knows alone 
what is to do.” 

“'This is to do, there is no other way of it.” 
Tonstain was ready to strike home. “ You .shall be 
Algitha and wed Count Karadac for his health’k 
sake.” 

Gundred .sprang up, her hands pressed to her 
heart. , 

“ I — I to be a thing .so base ! ” 

“ What other will you give my lord to wife ? — a 
stranger?” 

“ No stranger could play the part — ^Hut it is folly 
all!” ; ' ■ 

‘‘ Folly ? Look at Count Karadac and tell me i.k- 
it folly, or is -it mot rather the last frail strand of 
hope which holds him still to a shaken anchorage 
on life.” 

• -As he spoke Karadac drew a long, sighing breath, 
.so weak and pitiful it seenied no other could suc- 
ceed it. His worn face, bedewed and ghastly, with 
dry parted' lips, already bore tlie seal' of death.. 
His 1 shadowy hand • moved feebh',' and as .she 


LOVK'S CHANGELING. 163 

watched it Gundred felt as if its touch were on her 
heart-strings. 

He wakes. Goto him, give him this cordial,” 
Tonstain whispered ; “ aye, and the cordial of your 
lips. Remember, if he awakes and finds not At- 
githa, he dies.” 

Gundred was beside the bed, and bending over 
Karadac put the cordial to his lips. When he had 
swallowed it they stirred but no voice was audible ; 
onh^ as Gundred’s hand sought his, the .fingers tried 
to close on hers. 

“ I am still beside my lord,” she murmured,, and 
his dull ear heard, for he smiled faintly and slept 
again. 

“ I have no need for further argument, ’’.said r<m- 
stain, when Gundred turned once more. towards him, 
drawn as it seemed unwillingly to hear the end of 
his bold project. “He may live with happiness, 
but not without it.” 

One hand clenched upon the other, she stood for 
a long time communing with herself. Tonstain 
could gather nothing from her troubled aspect, 
since, whichever way she turned, there danget.and 
sorrow lurked. 

“ The thing is visionary, it is not possible,” she 
said at last. “ How long could we keep so manifest 
a secret from his knowledge? Just so long as he 
lies here helpless and alone. And more than that, 
he must guess it for himself when he recovers all 
the use of all his senses. Will he not know my 


164 


LOVE’S CHANGELING. 


voice, perhaps detect my very presence by some 
keen apprehension new-given to the blind ? Speak 
of it no more ! If it were possible to deceive him 
for his good, I know not how I might answer you, 
but it would make bad worse to add outrage to his 
loss, to fail in a device whose sole excuse would lie 
in even a short measure of. success.” 

But Tonstain stood unshaken. 

“ The happy ask few questions. Who so easily 
deceived as one content to go hand in hand v/ith 
his belief ? ” 

She sighed impatiently. 

“You cannot persuade me! Do you know this 
Algitha has a tongue of silver, so they have told 
him. That gracious gift is hers— it is not mine.” 

Ton.stain laughed in his heart. She was all but 
won, although she argued still. 

“ Your voice is very sweet, lady — ” 

“Aye, but who can loose my tongue?” she said 
with passion. “ I am doubly cursed in that ! ” 

“ If I can unloose it and so set free your speech, 
will you save the Count? — Trust me, lady, all is 
possible.” 

“What? you can untie my stammering tongue? 
Then work your will upon it now — now — now! < 
That would lend colour to your scheming. Give 
me one proof, and I will stand by all your counsel.” ‘ 

“ I have your promise ? ” 

“Yes, I will s>vear it. If we can by any means , 
give the Count strength to gather strength, after- \ 


LOVE’S CHANGELING. 


65 


wards we will tell him we did him this wrong to 
save him. He will not forgive me — aye, I know it, 
but I can bear that also.” 

“ The mind of man is a riddle : let the future 
solve it. Meanwhile, Lady hundred, one thing 
more. Should you consent to play this part, I must 
ffive knovvledsfe of it to all who dwell with us in the 
Castle here, lest any coming to him unaware should 
fr'ustrate us by some ignorant betrayal ; ” he stopped, 
half doubtful of .her answer. For his thought was 
that if all men knew, and all were equally committed 
to so hazardous a venture, Gundred could not draw 
back or make confession when the mood seized her, 
since in her own ruin she must overwhelm many. 
Thus he hoped to secure her to his will. 

But for the time Gundred’s keen sense, her hold 
on the common things of life, were all lost in the 
flame and marvel of Tonstain’s stratagem. 

“ As you will,” she said indifferently. “ The 
shame, if shame there is, lies not in the telling but 
the doing.” 


I 


166 


* ^ I 

* 1 r I 

/ ' I 

. ' ' '4 ; c V.: ^ 

• * CHAPTER III. 

i 

17 I ' love’s mockery. 

• 'if*' * 

A WEEK trailed slowly In’. Slowly, that is, to 
some in the Castle of Gros-Nez, but not to Kara- 
daCjTvho felt with each fresh dawn the spring of a 
new life, — ariife such as he had never known before 
his blindness, for it was all strange gladness and 
})ure joy, that did not vanish with the passing hour 
but grew until it shed an all-pervading luminance 
on his dark path. 

Health came back. to him, and each precious day 
brought for a short space at morn and eve a pres- 
ence with ^oh movements and low voice, whose in- 

^tonation, slow and delicately clear, charmed him 
wi^th a hundred rare sweet tricks of utterance, lac- 
ing blind, he dwelt the more upon her voice, and 
wholly it bewitched him. 

“ Lady, where learnt you these little turns of 
stress and accent?” he said one day. “ I think the 
angels taught you, for never yet did woman speak 
like you ! ” 

“ y\las, that has ever been my' fault ! ” Gundred 
answered truthfully'. 

“ P'ault? — unless it be a fault that y'our words are 
set in rhythm to a man’s heartbeats so close they 

i 

; 


« 


LOVK’S MOCKERY. 


167 


answer to the leapin<^ of his blood,” was the passion- 
ate response. “How cool the air blow's upon n\.y 
brows ! ” 

It was a gloonu' afternoon that [)roinised rain, 
and already a damp breeze came si^liin^ tii rough 
the wdndovv. Gundred shivered. 

“ It is the presage of the rain, sweet but not last- 
ing,” she replied. 

“ Rain or shine, w hat matters it if happiness glows 
W'ithin to keep the spirit w'arm ! ” 

Was she happy ? She paused to ask lierself the 
<|uestion, and Karadac, sensitive to her silence, 
raised himself upon the tw^o arms of tlie chair 
wherein lie lay jiropped wn'th cushioned cloaks. 

“ Are )'ou not liapp\% Lady Algitha? ” 

d'he anxious tenderness of affection linked to the 
hated name tossed (rundred’s hot lieart in tliosc 
cross currents of emotion she had not yet leai nt how 
to u'eather, and which many a time came near to 
swamping her frail bark. 

“ So happy,” she faltered; “ safe, and at peace.” 

He leaned back but half .satisfied, yet so much as 
he desired could not come quickly, and he schooled 
himself to patience. 

A timid hand came about his head to smooth the 
ruffled folds beneath it, and to his waiting .sense it 
seemed to linger in its task. On that his seeking 
fingers followed hers. 

“ Lady, lend me your hand. I still fear I am 
.i-drc:am.” 


i68 


LOVE'S MOCKERY. 


Nay, but you are awake,” she said with a soft 
merriment, and he pictured the smile she wore,. 

“ awake, and growing stronger day by day.” , 

He drew her hand upon his lips. 

“ I grow stronger with this to give me courage. > 
Soon, lady, we will leave this bleak atul wind-torn 
.spot for my own Castle of Gouray. And before the 
summer goes 1 would take you — we will ride 
together then, if Heaven be kind — to a little shrine 
near Grouville, the Chapel of Saint Margueritte. 
For it was there I first looked on your picture— 
that blessed sight without which happiness had re- 
mained unknown to me for ever!” 

I'he hand in his was cold. 

“What — the picture at Saint Margueritte’s ? ” 
(jundretl almost forgot again. “ 1 never heard of 
that.” 

“Ah, Goyault told you I had seen it first at^ 
Gouray ? Dear lady, 1 had pas.sed the whole night 
in prayer with the hermit on Saint llelier’s rock 
thanking Heaven for the knowledge of you, ere 
ever 1 returned to my Castle and they told me the 
story which was mine already. None but ourselves 
.shall know where first we met, dear lady, for, gazing 
upon your picture, I thought the eyes answered to 
my own and called me to your aid. That lies be- 
tween thee and me.” 

Gundred set her teeth hard, loathing her.self U> 
think that unawares she was winning all the secrets 
of his love from him, yet driven to hear them by 
her rage of jealousy. 


LOVE’S MOCKERY. 


169 


The Count sat thinking for a while. 

“Goyault was very sad' that evening as we two 
took oath in the Castle chapel that we would be 
your champions to the death. Was he still sad in 
Grenezay ? ” 

“ No, but joyous, for there he found the lady 
whom he loved,*’ said Gundred. 

“ What — say you so ? Then I am doubly glad ! 
I thought indeed he withheld somewhat from me. 
Love doth work a curious alteration in a man. 
Goyault is open as the day yet he concealed his 
hope, and I, who seldom can babble of such things 
as move in me strongly, told him of you — and of 
my love. For I do love you, lady, as you well 
know,” he added humbly. 

Now there was one woman, not Algitha, of whom 
Gundred was fain to make him speak, of that one — 
she almost seemed a stranger to Gundred now — 
who lay her length among the June flowens^ forsaken 
and unconsoled, and cursed the man she loved by 
all the gods she knew. 

“ Nay, how can we tell what is love? For you, 
lord Count, have surely loved before ?” 

“ I had sought for love and found it not. Easy 
loves I had in truth, such as all men can acquire, 
but I was not greedy for the husks which some call 
love. Mine was a desire of the soul — though I, 
poor fool, had sought it through the flesh ! ” 

“ But some have loved you ? ” 

Karadac shook his head. 


170 


LOVES. MOCKERY. 

“ Only such as love while you feed them.” 

“ Nay, lord, 1 know th^t some have loved you 
truly. Some have mourned for you and would fain 
have given all that you could ask of loye, the high- 
est and the best ! ” 

. Something in her tones set his pulses beating. 
She was so sure that others loved him, might it not 
be becau.se she felt moved thereto in her own 
breast ? .Vnswering her, he gave a fleeting thought 
to Gundred's last avowal, but she could not have 
given him that wondrous blend of soul and heart 
and mind which day by day revealed itself in 
Algitha. * 

“ No, I knew of none, . You only, lady, of all the,. 
world — ” I 

“ How know you that ? ” she cried out in her 
pain. “You only saw a picture and built up from ^ 
lier fair face and form the woman you had dreamt 
of ! Had she been uncomely — ” 

“ I cannot so imagine you,” he answered gravely. 
“Yet in truth it is a chance which might well befall 
a man.” Then shaking off his graver air, he smiled. 

“ It is a new thought and has its own significance 
for others, but for me — none. I have found you ! ” 

“ An ideal, built, as I have told you, from the 
eye alone.” 

“Not so, Algitha, for every day doth prove my. 
heart a true prophet. That which I foresaw, you ; 
are.” 

Thus Karadac outpoured to Gundred’s ears his. 


LOVE'S MOCKKRV. 


171 


inmost thougiits which such as he keep for tiie 
loved one onlv. He told her of Ulake and that 
smiiiner night when his eyes dwelt on the lioriKon 
as if with the premonition of her coming. Aye, 
and much more, for she answered him like the dim 
echo tt) a joyful shout, shy, far-off, but attuned to 
the same key. 

It may not be written down how Guild red lis- 
tened, turning the knife in the wound — a soul in 
torment ! There were wild moments when she 
could have told him all in the access of her jealous 
frenzy. Algitha — and \'et Algitha I How he loved 
— how he could love ! She had known it through 
the long hungry years and longed to hear him say as 
now he said : “ I loved you then,” “ iViul then such 
was my thought of you,” an exquisite inconsequence 
-of memories heaped up about one name. But now 
she heard them as one who overhears ; to her the 
words were spoken, yet she had no part in them ! 
Clothed in another’s empty title, she suffered those 
caresses once so desperately yearned for and im- 
agined in older days. 

And he in his blindness wandered on, kissing the 
brown hand he held, and desiring a glimpse of vision 
if but to praise its whiteness. Then turning back 
to vow he had no more to wish for since she was^ 
there — Algitha, who in her divine pit\’ had come to 
him, maimed, wrecked and broken as he was. 

Then Gundred, in one of those strange change.s 
of her moods, flashed out in a grave playfulness 


172 


LOVE’S MOCKERY. 


that none before had ever seen her use. She with- 
drew her hand, accusing him. 

“ 1 will not give my hand to one who can speak 
ill of the Count of Gersay. Only a traitor could 
call him thus, ‘ broken and maimed and wrecked ’ ! 

Karadac’s dark face lit up. 

“ Why not, lady, since so, alas ! he is become ? 

“ That I deny ! For I hold he is the noblest 
knight of all the world ! — brave and strong and 
fierce — and tender ! ” 

The verve of the opening and the sudden fall of 
the la.st words enthralled him. 

“ Algitha ! ” he cried aloud, you cannot love 
me ! — I, a broken man, although in your sweet 
kindness you would deny it, — blind, an outcast from 
the common life of other men. I, who can no 
longer tilt for your dear name nor carry your badge 
to battle ! How could you give your loveliness and 
youth to such as I ? Now, had it been Goy- 
ault — ! ” 

“ Goyault ! ” the soft, scornful repetition fired him 
anew. 

Algitha, for the love of Christ, tell me — can it 
be?” 

He stretched out his arms, and from out of his 
darkness one came and knelt beside him, and he 
clasped them round the form and drew it close. 

Thus it was that Gundred at length laid her 
weary head upon her lover’s breast. 

Tn a wordless rapture he kissed her hair and brow' 


LOVE’S MOCKERY. 


173 - 


and eyes, tlien vvitli a strange, soft touch of rever- 
ence he won her lips. And she, restraining her own. 
passion, yielded to his will, aching to know how 
small the reverence he owed her. Resting within 
his arms, robbing him of those first words and 
kisses; half-distraught she was between the gnawing- 
strain of self and circumstance. 

“ Algitha, you cannot love me?’' he murmured.. 

“ Do I not, lord? — then what is it to love? ” 

“ Dear heart, I have seemed to see you hovering 
above me on bright wings, and feared that when I 
sought to hold you in my arms you would depart.” 

“ And leave you thus ? ” 

“Aye, thus for ever, in the dark — alone !” 

For answer, he felt the tears upon her cheek.. 
There was no room for words; the load of happiness 
pre.ssed down upon his heart. 

When at length he .spoke again it was to ask her 
when she had learnt to love him, what spirit had" 
drawn her to his side. 

“ I had heard of you, seigneur, — many speak of 

♦ ♦ 

you. 

“In Grenezay ? — It was Goyault ! — he gave you 
all my message? — ah, faithful friend! ” 

“ Nay, it was long and long before I saw Goyault. 
In the past years I heard your name — and loved it.” 

“ My name, sweetheart — you loved my name ? 
Say it in your dear voice as you have said it to 
your.self before we met.” 

Gundred, with her cheek pre.ssed to his, wliispered r 


1/4 


LOVK S MOCKERY. 


“ Kuradac, Karadac ! 1 would that such a knight 

as Karadac inij^ht love nie ! ” 

Thus answering each to each they told in frag- 
ments the liistory of their past, and Karadac found 
in her replies strange echoes of his own old yearn- 
ings tor the love supreme. It seemed almost un- 
earthly to hear these saine thoughts from other lips, 
and those so young and innocent that on them the 
sweet breath of childhood lingered still. 

W ith gentle care he took her head between his 
hands and bent down his face towards her as if 
through his closed lids lie could see her by the 
force of his desire. 

Love, 1 almost seem to see you !-- to sec tliat 
golden head and the red mouth whicli tells me 1 
am l^eloved. Love, are you flushing over all your 
fairness? Can you not feel I see you? — Answer 
me with those eyes that called me in the chapel 
»)f Saint Margueritte I ” then raised 'his face to 
heaven ; “ God, grant me to see her as she is ! ” 
With a choked cry she slipped away from 
between the wistful hands. His j^rayer — to see 
her as she was'!— could that be granted as her 
])rayer had been — wliat then Oli, it could never 
be! Better die a hundred deaths of pain than 
meet his glance of loathing and contempt. 
Crouched by him on the ground, a burning vision 
])assed before her. 

“ No more, dear lord, no more ! ” she sobbed. 
Suffer me to leave vou now. 1 will return.’' 


LOVE’S MOCKERY. 


‘/5 • 

But Karadac was on his feet, trembling and 
stretching out groping hand. 

“ What have I done, Algitlui ? — what have 1 
done ? Beloved, you cannot leave me so ! What 
is it 1 have done to trouble you ? ” 

Swiftly she rose and steadied his weak grasp witli 
her own. 

“Nay, lord — Karadac — what have you done? 
Made me too happy — that is# all ! ” 

On the dim stone staircase Tonstain met her 
rushing like a storm, 

“ All goes well, lady ? ” 

She drew back as if at bay, and he saw her dai k 
eyes gleam. 

“Aye, for I am in hell ! And ’tis you have 
damned me, Tonstain ! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE COMING OF ALGITHA. 

Under the battlements a flagged footway led 
round the outer wall. There Gundred carried her 
flooded heart. 

The August rain was falling soft and thick and 
close ; below' tower and cliff the sea swung in a 
deep swell, half hidden by the misty veiling of the 
shower. 

She was alone ! — she thanked God for that, if for 
naught else. She was alone to face her trouble, 
d'he sentinel on the square citadel above saw the 
sweep of a rich robe come and go behind a jutting 
bastion. 

“ God, grant me sight to see her as she is ! ” The 
words and prayer had stabbed the darkness of her 
soul to light. What had she done ? — for the first 
time she saw the w'hole infamy of Karadac’s be- 
trayal. Defraud a man of all things, wealth and 
pow'er and friendship, but leave him love ! And it 
was no enemy had done this thing, but she who 
thought she loved him! Borne down between the 
shocks of love and jealousy, she had lent herself to 
desecrate his inmost shrine of dreams. How sacred 


THE COMING OE ALGiTHA. 


177 

he held that shrine she learned more fully day by 
day. 

With hurrying steps she paced up and down the 
footway of wet granite, her head betw'een her hands, 
for the air seemed loud with clamorous voices. 

She knew now how eager she had been from the 
beginning to play her unnatural part, and how al- 
most happy m the first glow of playing it. She 
looked back upon herself. To have him woo her 
to usurp his tenderness — to gather to herself tliat 
knowledge of him which could be given to none 
save her he loved — to arrogate the outgoings of an 
affection long and bitterly refused her — all these 
had raised an exultation in her brain. With a 
venom of self-contempt she acknowledged all. She 
and her heart — how unimaginably fallen ! 

Yet even at such an hour as this her false posses- 
sion of him filled her with a torture of joy and 
pride that lasted to the very end. 

Better die a tliousand deaths than, be deceived 
as he had been ! — Yet could she go and tell him 
all? 

The inevitable moment had arrived when she 
must face the crisis of her guilt. How would it be 
with him when she disclosed the truth ? — when he 
knew that it was not Algitha but another whom he 
had held witnin his arms ; and to whom he had 
poured out the deep things of his love ? With terri- 
ble foresight Gundred saw the heart-wound she must 
give. She pictured Ivaradac’s self-loathing, — for 


178 THE COMING OF ALGITHA. 

he would sickeii at himself, scoff at his readiness of 
fond belief ! She pictured his despair when in the 
shattering of hope and happiness his defencelessness 
was brought home to him. She fancied the blind 
face with tears upon it, and clutched at the air in 
wild anguish of remorse. 

How could she tell him ? 

She leaned her elbows on the battlements and 
looked out upon the towering pinnacle of Gros-Nez. 
The rain had passed off for the moment, and she 
saw the great mass with bristling spires and jagged 
fangs clear-cut against a background of sea and sky. 
Above lier its defiant crest ; below, plunging sheer 
down into the depths, the unsealed side rowelled 
into spikes and spines of living rock. With steady 
swing tlie water rose about the lower spurs and fell 
back fretted into a thousand rivulets. 

How could she tell him ? Once it had seemed 
almost an easy task to kneel and to confess that 
she had deceived him to restore his ebbing life : 
but now, how dreadful, how impossible ! So much 
had passed between them since that day when, 
hungering for his love, she had bought it at such 
bitter cost to both ! Now she felt she could not 
live to say the words which must be spoken if — .. 

A rough-hewn step far down upon the Castle 
rock caught her eye and broke in upon her reverie: 
She leaned out and saw a hidden postern door, and 
leading to it a yard pr two of dizzy track — no more; 
And straightway forgot that she had seen, for over 


TilE COMING OF ALGITHA. 


'79 


Ui^ainst her on the towering side of Gros-Ncz peak 
thfere was a curving granite slope flushed as a faded 
rose, and seamed and wrinkled into a network of 
fine lines like some old cheek. Gundred’s eyes 
dwelt long upon it. It held her spellbound, this 
vision of unutterable age. Her cheek would yet 
be scored as that was by the chisel of the years. 
How short at best was our poor human span of love 
and joy ! 

She started upright. Why not hold it then, 
since it was in her hand ! Yes, pursue her course, 
having once begun it, to its utinost end. She had 
thought of her marriage with Karadac the cap 
to his undoing, the extremity of outrtige* on his 
helplessness. Whereas in truth, being deceived, 
let him live on in the dear fancy which fulfilled his 
dreams. Algitha, wife of Goyault. could be even 
less to him than herself. Fate had thrust a false 
gleam of joy upon them both , let them be o^lad in 
it till Fate’s shadow fell again. Why should .she 
hasten the day of ill? 

To be the wife of Karadac, to possess his love 
and confidence, however gained, however swiftly 
lost, would be enough to fill eternity with menv 
ories. 

Or soon or late, the hour must come when all her 
wprld would fall in ruins about her head, but once 
she had been his wife, his best- beloved, it mattered 
little what came afterwards ! Who looks beyond 
his Day of Judgment? 


i8o rilE COMING OF ALGITHA. 

“ Poor stone ! ” she said, “ you who have never 
known joy or tenderness or deep desire, you still 
can bear unmoved the buffets of God’s storms. 
And shall I flinch while I can satisfy his heart, 
and snatch for him and for myself a brief span of 
bliss from all the empty years ? It is enough ! I 
will not turn back, and let the end be what it may ! ” 

Assured of Algitha, Karadac permitted no de- 
lays. His heralds and his messengers passed 
through the island bidding all men, from seigneur 
to serf, to gather for his marriage at Gouray. 

During those last days spent in Goyault’s Castle 
the sun hid himself, and squalls blew up from the 
grey waste of sea. 

Gundred, waiting for the ordeal, of the day when 
she should stand forth as the fabe bride of Karadac, 
“listened to the sorrow of the rain without and 
moaning wind and knew them for a presage. Sad 
days of early autumn that seemed to weep for a 
dead summer. Settled in her resolve, she passed 
long hours with the Count, forgetting while she 
could that he loved not her, but the hated name 
she bore. And day by day she won upon him with 
her subtle brain, quickened to keener vigour under 
the stimulus of his poet’s fantasies and her own 
foreshadowing that the time was short. 

And Karadac marvelled at her, loving her the 
moPe as more he found her comparable to his high- 
est thoughts, — thus ]ie loved her, praised her until 
he almost broke her heart. 


THE COMING OF ALGITHA. i8i 

Mid-August came in a new- burst of summer, and 
with it Goyault and Algitha from Grenezay. Ton- 
stain, hearing of their coming, hurried forth to 
meet them at the gate, and as they talked together 
he marked the changes that a month of marriage 
had wrought in the young knight. 

This was no longer the old Goyault, full of frank 
laughter and the joy of a free heart, but a man 
with quick, questioning glances in his eyes and a 
frt)wn that came to brood most readily on his 
brows. 

As for Goyault, to his apprehension all seemed 
changed. Old friends looked askance at him, 
though some whi.spered leering in his ear that much 
might be forgiven one with so fair a bride. The 
warmth of greeting, the homeliness, the merry 
comfort he remembered, all were gone, and in their 
place suspicion and furtive smiles and curious 
regards. 

Tonstain spoke at length of the Count’s long 
sickness and recovery, then taking those two apart 
where none might overhear, he would have told 
them all, but Goyault cried : 

“ I need no middleman betwixt my lord and me. 
Lead on. He is much changed, or he will hear me 
before he condemns ! ” 

“When Count Karadac hears your defence \\ ' 
shall be all undone!” said Tonstain with a thin 
smile. “That much is certain.” 

“ Go, lead on ! ” Goyault moved imperiously. 


i 82 


Till': C().\liN(i ()!' ALC^riTlA. 


“ Stay, Goyault. What think you, our lord has- 
found another Lady Algitha ! ” Tonstafh hung on 
the inkiled elbow and peered eagerlyat the knight’s 
surprise. 

*• Kiiradac already loves another.^ — impossible!”’ 

“ Another, yet the same,” interposed Tonstain 
slily, and while the two wondered at him he poured 
forth the history of Gmulred and the Count. 

'riien a great wrath fell ui)on Goyault. 

“ Gundred } the woman always loved him !— 
come, Sieur, you and 1 will end this masque, this 
midsummer madness ere it go further! ” 

“ Stay, Goyault, you having seized the prize for 
lack of which he must have died, now forsooth 
would call us traitors.^ 

“But Lady Gmulred — \'ou 'well know how deeply 
he m'isliked her ! 

“ Aiul Lad\- Algitlia --- you well know how 
strangely he was set on her! Yet you were not 
loath to sacrifice your loyalty to your love, Seigneur 
<)f Saint Ouen. And what did Gundred more, ex- 
cepting that she had excuse, aiul you had none.** 

Mgi tha turned blue vivid eyes on Tonstain. 

“ My lord had his excuse, Sieur — I loved him 

“ Lady, he was rat'ely blest in that. But a far 
})oorer reason had been good enough for one who 
only looked to please himself,” he added coldly. 

Goyault stood 'mute. Shame and misery were 
doubly heaped upon him, for he must see his lord 
and ‘friend dupcd and fooled by 'uch as Tonstain, 


THE COMING OE ALGITHA. 183 

the while he, by his own act, had left himself with- 
out the right to raise one word in protest. 

“ Had I been here,” he murmured to hinjself, but 
Tonstain caught the wish. 

“ Had you been here we might have lacked occa- 
sion for the trick. Now carry out your part ; attend 
the marriage with your lad\'. For aught else it is 
too late.” 

“ And I, if there be another Algitha, what — who 
am I?” Algitha asked disdainfully. 

“ The lovely chatelaine of Gros-Nez. l>clicve 
me, you will look as fair in all men’s eyes by any 
name,” Tonstain answered, ‘but with a tinge (»f 
something ifi the courtesy which left Goyault ill 
pleased. 

“ l^rej)aration has been made to carry my lord 
this day to (xouray,” added Tonstain. “ \Vc start 
within tile hour. To-morrow is for the marriage.” 

A sudden burst of a man’s laughter, loud and 
high, re-echoed through the Castle. Goyault 
laughed and laughed again, and knew not why he 
laughed. 

In a distant room where Gundred sat by Karadac 
the sound was carried faintly, and the Count sprang 

“ Goyault is come ! They have told him of our 
marriage ! Algitha, hear him — he laughs for joy, — 
Goyault, Goyault, come hither! ” 

But once bedore liad Goyault heard his lord’s 
voice pitched to that selfsame kc\'*. He stood rigid; 


i 84 the coming of algitha. 


as if to listen — a dull notion aching in his heart that 
aforetime when he had heard those joyous tones, 
he feared ; now he feared and was ashamed ! 

“Come,” Tonstain took him by tlic shoulder, 
“ he should be no laggard who dares all for love. 
We will hasten the Count’s going, for the day wanes. 
But now forth to him, and beware of tripping 
tongues.” 

Then hand in hand Goyault and Algitha moved 
softly through the dim passages like guilty things, 
and so came upon the Count where he stood all 
ready by the inner gate and many waited round 
him. 

“ Goyault, a thousand welcomes ! Look, my 
lords and knights, upon this faithful friend, who 
saved and won for me my wife ! Algitha, my be- 
loved,” he drew Gundred proudly to his side, — - 

join me in thanking your noble champion of the 
lists. Put his hand in mine, sweet one, and tell the 
world our gratitude ! ” 

Gundred, with black brows drawn and set swarthy 
face, stood by her lord undaunted. .She had steeled 
herself for this, steeled herself to see the slow, in- 
evitable smile creep round from lip to lip. 

But Goyault was not prepared. The kindly 
greeting and the pity of the scene, with Karadac 
for its centre, beat him to the ground. And many: 
who once envied him, rejoiced to see him, aforetime 
.so high-hearted, now stand out a sorry figure for 
the common herd to jeer at. 


THE COMING OF ALGITHA. 


185 


Meantime Tonstain had brought Algitha to the 
Count. Her lips were white and stern and her eyes 
blazed dark, for she was outraged in the person of 
the man she loved. 

She cast a furious glance on Gundrcd, then her 
face slowly took on a cold compassion. She read 
the tragedy of the other woman’s life and pitied 
her. The offence of pity Gundred might have for- 
given her some day, but when Karadac, with grave 
kindness, would have kissed her hand, Algitha 
raised her eyes to the Count’s marred face. Tliis 
was the man who would fain have been her husband, 
for whose sake reproach had fallen on Goyault ! 
Even now he dreamed that he possessed her. Re- 
vulsion against him and his love and strong con- 
tempt surged up into her face. That also Gun- 
dred saw, and never in all the years of life to come 
forgave. 

Soon the long procession wound away across the 
heath, and last rode Karadac and Gundred side by 
side. Of all that throng the Count alone carried a 
light heart. 

Goyault watched them go, oppressed with many 
thoughts. The long cavalcade curved across the 
open ground and sank into the fringing woods. 
Then Algitha, pressing to his side, spoke out im- 
petuously. 

, “ Is that your Count — with his stern lip and mo.st 
imperious brow ? I to be his wife — I to wed that 
blind fierce eagle, whose very lack of sight strikes a 


86 


THE CUMING OF ALGI I JIA. 


cold horror through me ! Goyault, how could you 
think it — think to mate me with your Count? ” 

But Goyault was past the utterance of many 
words. Heaviness lay on him. 

“ Alas, Algitha, that you should so misjudge 
him ! ” 

But Algitha’s proud blood was hot within her. 

“ This Karadac works like a poison in you all! 
But most in you, Goyault. At sight of him, you 
are no more Goyault, but one who is ashamed of 
love ! And .see this whole land playing a crazy 
masque because, forsooth. Karadac craves an. 
Algitha — a puppet of his sick dreams ! Shame on 
you all ! 

But Goyault said no more, only gazed after those 
two who rode last, and rode together, Karadac and 
Gundred, with that wild story woven in their live^. 
until at length the wise old forests closed upon; 
them. 


187 


CHAPTER V. 


THE MAKKIAGE EEAST. 

In tUe long hall the marriage feast was set. 
Above, the low vaulted roof held dimness in its 
breast, a brooding cloud above the ruddy torch- 
light. Karadac and his bride .sat high enthroned 
upon a dais, and about them a great flare of torciies 
multiplied, for so the Count had given command, 
being fain that all men should behold the loveliness, 
the ineffable loveliness— -which filled his fancy — of 
his bride. Yet even there, between the leaping 
tongues, of flame, the shadows from the roof slid 
down the walls and snatched away an instant’s 
light. 

Drogo de Barantin stood apart and watched the 
scene with rheumy eyes that held the salt of tears. 
The bride,— his child, his Gundi:ed — throned beside 
her lord, and he himself, her father, by some crafty 
bedevilment sworn to silence and cut off from all 
the honours due to him. Gundred wedded to the 
CouAt of Gersay — his wish fulfilled at last, but 
surely it was turned to a.shes in his mouth ! Gun- 
dred, always heretofore a. loving daughter and sub- 
jjiissive. h .d bidden him depart to Rozel, for, said. 


88 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


she, words are dangerous. Yet, when had he,. 
Drogo de Barantin, spoken any but wise words? 

Like some old pantaloon, bewitched to dumbness,, 
he hung the long day through upon the fringes of 
the marriage tragedy. His touch would ling*er on 
the sleeve of some more lucky guest, till men turned 
with mocking eyes upon him and laughed one to 
the other as he slipped away, murmuring in his 
beard reproaches and sound argument which hi.s 
oath to Gundred stifled from free speech. 

He stood deserted by the great lower door 
through which scullions and cooks jostled each 
other, bearing huge dishes for the board. P'ew 
torches lightened the smoky darkness here, but he 
could see rough-haired and unkempt heads of fisher- 
folk and serfs wagging in the gloom, and uncouth 
faces wide with laughter. In peevish longing he 
looked up the lines of guests to the board’s head 
where Gundred queened it at her husband’s side. 

The suspense and shame of the hour, when a 
chance joke from some drunken guest might bring- 
down all the frail building of her happiness, had 
brought a heav}^ flush to her cheek, but, always 
cold and proud, Gundred had gained in these latter 
days a new majesty of mien, a royalty of sadness. 
And dark Karadac the imperious was not himselL 
he was another ; gay, lighthearted, his sombrous 
moods thrown off, but — Drogo shook his head— 
’twas because the venom of his fever lingered yet in 
him, left him clinging to false visions in a world 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


189 


turned upside down. Algitha, Algitha ! — hear him 
speaking now, calling her Algitha whose hand jie 
held ! Algitha, whom all the world knew these past 
thirty years to be Gundred, his daughter, the Sieur 
of Rozel’s daughter and heiress of broad lands, no 
beggar Saxon maid. 

^ “ Drogo de Barantin, what do you here? ” a cold 
voice in his ear, and Drogo shook like a leaf in a 
stormy wind. 

A tall cowled form stood by him. 

“ And who hath a better right than I to witness 
these my daughter’s bridals ? ” asked Barantin 
tremulously. 

“ None, if you held your due place thereat.” 

Drogo called up his old assurance. 

“ Why, so I said, good father, but they would 
not listen. Here am I cast out from board and 
feasting, forbidden high lodgment by the bride— 
which is in truth my due — and sworn to keep my- 
self in cornered silence.” 

. “And you have obeyed ! — you also lend yourself 
to your lord's deception ? No further quibbles, 1 
pray of you ! It is enough that Karadac is mortally 
deceived.” 

Drogo de Barantin peered up beneath the coarse 
hood. 

“ Karadac is mad ! ” he whispered. “ Are you 
not Ulake, the hermit of the rock? Then, good 
Ulake, take it upon the word of one who is duke 
William’s trustecl servant that Karadac is mad ! ” 


190 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


“ No, you do dupe me ! Karadac has been de- 

] \ I ;■ 

eeived — how 1 know not, by the cr.aft of Tonstain^ — 
why 1 know not I ’’ ^ i 1 

“ Deceived ? — but Gundred loves him — loves, the 
Count beyond the force of words ! She would die 
for him,” urged the little shaking man. 

“ Aye, loves him. 1 hat tells the story in itself. 
By fraud she has secured him. Let me pass. Here 
before the world at this great feast I will unstop 
his ears, even though his eyes be sealed! ” 

But Drogo clung to him. 

“ Ulake, good Ulake, be not rash. I myself, if I 
could talk with him but one little hour,, would show, 
him all the reasonableness of this marriage.' I would 
])oint out that the Algitha he dreams of is but a 
Saxon witch ; 1 would point out, since Heaven had 
blinded him, what concern has he further witli. hair 
that golden is or black, all colours being the same 
to his lost eyes. See you not my argument? 
Karadac is hotblooded, and has. been wrongfully 
wrath with me ere now, but this is so plain a’truth 
it cannot fail to reach him. The fever overturned 
his brain, Ulake, but sound counsel such a,s mine 
will work the cure.” 

A deep voice that silenced the clamour rang 
down along the hall. Karadac stood upon his feet 
and called upon his lieges. 

“ Have you not heard, good friends, the Romance 
of the Picture? ILnv I tnst gazed upon my lady’s 
faee — not as (’o 1 >- h in its native- 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


191 


Jsn'bw and rose but on Iter fair presentment in 
which some wbhder-handed m^n ha4 painted all her 
golden beauty. Would you not look on both, alid 
see how far my bride transcends her mirrored love- 
liness? — Goyault ! Sieur Goyault, you who won niy 
lady Algitha from death — ” 

A hoarse drunken laugh rose to the smoke-hung 
rafters. Goyault lifted his face from shelter of Itis 
hand, and scowled upon the roysterers. 

“ Aye, Goyault won Algitha ! ” shouted a bold 
voice. 

Karadac smiled, d'he win : w as high in every 
man — what wonder if the sight of Algitha in lier 
sweet beauty fired some wn’Id brain to folly ? 

“ Go, Goyault, and bring here the picture from 
the chapel.” 

“Bid him fetch Algitha!” again shouted the 
wild voice. .Vnd amongst the maddened crew' tlic 
suggestion grew in favour, as some lenvd jest to be 
played off in laughter. 

Goyault rose and slowly left the hall. Now’ in- 
deed he had time to be thankful that Algitha, the 
true Algitha, moved by more than some wind of 
woman’s humour, had jealously refused to ride from 
Gros-Nez for the bridal feast. Trouble w^as in the 
air. 

Meantime Karadac whispered of love and a whole 
world’s admiration in the dull ear of Gundred, w^hile' 
Tonstain, standing upright at the board with frown- 
ing brows, sent a sharp mandate from ear to ear 


192 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


that the ill was now done, and if lord Karadac 
should to-night learn his betrayal, whose head 
should stand to-morrow on its shoulders ? Had 
they not all stood by in silence as he pledged his 
troth? Would Karadac forgive? Nay, in hot 
blood his sword, for all his blindness, would find 
more hearts than one. Let them beware ! 

The warning sobered for the moment those who 
heard. But Gundred, looking on the wine-flushed 
faces, knew her time was short. To-night within the 
hour, if all went well, she would ride forth with her 
lord to some hidden haunt among the hills, where it 
was his will that their first days of love should pass, 
a spot unknown and solitary ; and they tw'o alone, 
living as simply as the serfs, find love’s fulfilment in 
each other. If she could compass this before the 
charm of his blindness was br6ken for Karadac, 
then she could count on a space of happiness for 
both. A little time to show him that her soul held 
all he lacked of love ; a little time to taste life’s 
sweetness ; a fleeting hour it must be, yet, once en- 
joyed, her own. 

Perhaps a deep hope lived in her unaware that 
she could fix his love immutably, and naught ever- 
more prevail against her. But Goyault’s words 
echoed through her thought, the words uttered in 
the chapel when first the fatal picture came among 
them to breed woe : “ It is the whole we love, the 
whole most blessed embodiment and soul. The 
one sweet element supports another, each adds to 


THK iVlARRJAGE FKAST. 


193 


each and they are indivisible.” Aye, and Karadac 
dwelt on Algitha's lips and eyes ; what had she to 
counterweight that golden beauty ? 

Was man’s love this — even Karadac’s ? Into the 
void of his blind world had arisen this glorious sun 
of Algitha. He was held in the grip of fancy and 
of dreams, of long imaginings and sweet silences ; 
but interwoven all with visions of blue eyes that 
shone, red lips and snowy tints; and when he 
learned at length that his Algitha was no Algitha, 
could the torn fabric of those dreams ever be made 
whole again ? 

The dark knights and seigneurs of the land were 
drawing up towards the dais, and behind them she 
could see hard faces of the men-at-arms, backed by 
staring, wild-eyed peasants. A hush hung over all, 
half expectation and half strain. She scanned the 
crowd. Cruel, insensate fools, playing their wild 
game with a man’s soul, a woman’s agony! Ton- 
stain’s quiet figure moved slowly through them 
with a word here and there, as best beseemed each 
case, but his anxious eye was ever upon Ulake. He 
knew the tall figure and feared its mission of dis- 
closure. As he drew near he heard Drogo’s foolish 
iteration : “ Karadac is mad, I tell you ; he dwells in 
a world that is upside down ! ” 

But the hermit’s cold gaze was on Tonstain. 

‘ Karadac is not mad, he dreams,” said Tonstain 
easily. “ For all of us is not life a dream ? — life in 
the dark is but a dream vvithin a dream.” 


194 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


“ Peace, Tonstain ! That” — he raised a haiiH 
towards the dais — “is no dream. Karadac’s life is 
poisoned at its source, his heart is pricked by fraud, 
his blood drains from him hour by hour, and yet he 
knows it not. Yours is the guilt, Tonstain, blood- 
guilt ! ” 

“ And you would reveal all to him ? ” 

“Am I not here?* rejoined the other. 

“ If the Count dreams, his visions are of joy, but 
you, his friend, would waken him to sorrow. Be it 
so.” Tonstain shrugged his shoulders, and made as 
if to turn away. 

“ Nay, but if. long indulged in, the .dream will 
grow too dear.” 

“ A consummation much to be prayed for, much 
to be supplicated from kind Heaven,” retorted 
Tonstain. “ What better could befall?” 

Ulake dwelt upon the answ'er. It bore a touch 
of truth. Tonstain grasped the moment. 

“ Do you desire his wellbeing, Ulake ? Then let 
him dream, until perchance his wife’s redemption 
be born of growing love. Had he wedded Algitha, 
he must hawe craved pardon for his marriage from 
his suzeraih, duke William of Normandy, and 
craved in vain. And how think you would the 
Lady Matilda, a cold devotee, receive one who has 
been called a Saxon witch ? With honour at her 
‘Court? You know that Could not be. We' did ill, 
it may be, but good has Come of it. Karadal 
dreamed of Algitha through 'his long sickness, and 
we but gave a substance to his dream.” 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


195 


A false substance.” 

"True, we could do no rnore, since the Count's 
friend Goyault had taken the true Algitha to wile,-— 
Ulake, let be 1 You are no heady priest who, right 
or wrong, pushes forth a creed though it sliould set 
a world on fire.” 

‘Oh, serpent-tongued — how fair tlu' guise you 
put upon illdoing ! Well, 1 will wait. See, 'tis 
there your danger lies. 

Goyault passed up tlie hall, holding the je lure, 
to his breast so that none could look upon it, and 
the feasters crowded round hini. 

'' Tt is Goyault. They press upon him,” whis- 
pered Gundred. 

Karadac stood upright. 

“ Rise, dear heart : ” then called aloud : “ My 

lords and vassals, we will have the picture set here 
beside my lady's self, and you, good friends, shall 
judge how great the painter's art, and \’et how far 
below this matchless pattern.” 

The man was, for the moment, all compact of 
happy pride — his old sad self forgotten. A derisive 
cheer went up from husky throats. And (joyault, 
moving slowly and more reluctantl)-, pushed the 
picture with a maladroitness str'ange to one so deft 
askew upon the dais, so that those who looked saw 
nothing but a blur. 

“ Show us the lady’s face, Goyault ! a single 
voice followed with malicious echo. 

Karadac spoke in low, angry tones. 


196 


THK MARklAui; I'EAST, 

“ vVhat hast tiiou cloms Ao^-.uilt ? Will )'ou flout 
my lady and cheat n\y of tliis ^reat honou> 

I have designed tiieih * Wiierc is the picture? 
Here lay my hands upf)n it, AlgithaA and so, grop- 
ing trom his place, he raised the picture to the 
board, and his scarred face buriu'd ladiant as tin- 
beholders raised frliouL upon shout. 

For a space in«> thought of notliing hut th.e luC- 
turtl, the wist! Ill, girlish grace and tepder charm 
went hoine to each man’s heart ; while Goyault, sick 
in mind, slipped asiifc and would not look on that 
lie feared was now to be his (^wn and Ids great lord’s 
undoing. ’ Vet whom to blame ? Not .Vlgitba, lov- 
ing, faithful, injured .Algitha ! 

Reside the presentment of her )’oung and f;dr ri\ al 
Gundred stood rigid, clothed in her strange majt:st \’, 
not fearing comment or comparison, reieal, in'{)as- 
sive. ' . ' 

And in that lieated moment her cold pride seemed 
to those who looked as thougli she scorned h,t:r 
rival, and bad blood rose in vacant, fevered brains. 
It was a concrete struggle for pre-eminence, woman 
against woman — the fair, pleading pictured maid, 
set in rivalry against the dark lady, repellent in her 
silent pride. Beauty defeated ? What man could 
let the victory go without a word, an effort ? 

Howls of derision and dislike and wild tun^bled 
sentences, one breaking in upon another, filled the 
hall with tumult. 

“ Heaven open thine eyes, good lord ! ” 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 


197 


But Tonstain was by Karadac, and with a word 
Oi Algitha in his ear, of defending her from sight 
and sound of these rude flatterers, drew him forth 
through a little door covered witli arras, that led 
upwards to the women’s room. 

Gundred stood still, one hand upon the picture, 
which she held upright beside her still, challenging 
the world. Her dark, undaunted eyes met the on- 
rush of the maddened crowd with the same steady 
scorn. Death, if it came thus at such a moment, 
had few terrors for her soul. 

But, before the wild rush reached her, Ulake 
gained her side ; his hood thrown back, his aspect 
cowed the foremost few. 

Back, traitors, this lady is the Count’s bride. 
Lord Karadac has taken to wife one of your blood, 
a lady of the land, no stranger. Back, and salute 
her who shall rule you all ! ” 

The resonant call held the crowd hangfooted. 

“ Good father, the Count hath been deceived. 
He has not learned that the picture is one, his wed- 
ded bride another,” a voice came from the lower 
hall. 

“ That lies between your lord and Heaven — if it 
be so,” said Ulake with command. “ Has Karadac 
ever suffered meddling with his doings.^ Is he not 
still imperious? Come, choose one of your num- 
ber who shall go and tell him that he is deceived.” 

In the hush some shuffled, but none detached 
themselves from the huddled group of poorer folk. 


98 


TliK MARRIAGE FEAST. 


aiui tiic lords show cd a new disdain and held apart^ 
but there came no answer, only the people returned 
Vo seek their places at the board, 

Gundred laid the picture . on its fact', raising to- 
Ulake e\ es of woe, aiul ever after in his [)rayers the 
oerinit [)ra} ed for her as for a lost soul. 

i lie tranipliny; of the hoofs had died away, and 
nau'^ht remained to sight but the flickering trail of 
torchlight which one bore before Karadac and iiis 
bride into the woodetl solitudes across the hills. 

'• Well, we have gained time to breathe," said 
Tonstain, “time to prepare ourselves for the last 
moment, should Karadac prove cruel in the ven- 
geance w'hich must come.” 

Ulake replied at odds and broodingiy. 

“ She is a noble lady.” 

“ Aye, his very mate now^ he is blind,” laughed 
the other. 

“ A noble soul, already full of penitence, but with 
an unquenched fire of pride.” 

“ 1 could have loved her, I myself, Iiad she been 
comely,” uttered Toivstain, and Ulake looked upon 
him keenly till he laughed again. “ Nay, Ulake, 
she would have none of me, for she has alway.s 
loved m)' lord.” 

“ And he ?” 

“ Oh, you have heard of it — how he fled from 
her ! And yet with her high thoughts and her 
dumb pride she is his very mate, as I have said.” 

IRake pondered still. He bethought him of a 


THE MARRIAGE FEAST.' lu. 

Tnt>onIit night and one who lay upon a rock anti 
cried out haughtily ; “ 1 had not missed her so. 
My lieart must ha\e warned me, ‘ Karadac, look u(), 
tliy beloved is nigh.’ ” And now it seemed as 
tlunigh, hut for Goefs dire punishment, Lu\ e, 
truest a!id dearest Lov'e had passed by Karadac be- 
cause it wore no guise of earthly beauty. 

** Is it beauty that we love? ” he asked in a halC- 
wliispqr. 

“ liea\ en made us so, w e l<.)ve but through the 
e\'e : what would you? I have a rare jesting story^ 
•of one w lu)*was blind, and a w'oman ‘who was ugly. 
But men in that country praised her fairness to 
lhat blind man s ear till he was consumed with hot 
■<lesire. She was a inaiden wdlh none to lielp her 
.So he ruined her in truth, believing in her beauty 
llt.M* h.oimdiiu'ss had been her safeguard, but it had 
f.iiled. And all the wn)rld made jests upon her sor- 
row and appraised each other’s wit. .Se’e you, her- 
mit ? A twisted place, Christ’s world ! 

d'hen Ulake j)<issed,out fia)m the mocking* echoes 

'Tonstain’s words,, and so alojig the marshy shores 
towards his hmne. 

“Alas, Karadac I But I will «stay my hand. 
<AhI ‘Jn high avenges or w ithholds.’ ' , 


200 


CHAPTER VI. 

AFTER. 

Autumn in a sunny mood was lingering on the 
uplands. No wild winds yet shook down the dy- 
ing leaves, but death came to them gently on a 
^ighing breeze and drew them down to rest in 
thickets still breathing warm of summer, or on 
sweet sward where their last languors might swoon 
away in sunshine. 

Remote, withdrawn among the hollows of the 
haunted hills, Karadac aforetime had built himself 
a shelter for his lonely hours. To this rough hut 
of logs Gundred journeyed with her lord. 

There time stole passionately past. Each day 
blit gave them new-born bliss of love and that keen 
s V ouring of their happiness which follows on long 
hunger. Solitude <Uid full communion heart to 
heart — life*s richest fy^oments thick inlaid upon the 
hours. 

Karadac for the first time since his childhood 
lived without reservation in the present. He had 
escaped from the clouded weariness of life and 
basked in full noonday. As Love’s greatness grew 
upon him, it expelled the lesser rabble of smaller 
doubts and fears ; his world appealed to him only 


20 1 


AFTHiR. 

as it reflected Algitha. He forgot to dwell dt his 
old manner upon the whither and the whence. 
His delusion gave him this one good thing at. least, 
-a term of full-fraught happiness. 

How dear she. grew! New links were forged 
w'nich day by day bound him more closely to her. 
I'here was no mood she could not meet, no thought 
1)11 1 she would lend it wings to rise, no problem 
that Iter sweet voice could not lay at rest with re- 
minders of their love, in which her spirit found the 
])r()of and seal of immortality. 

K.ir.uJac loved to provoke her to assurances of 
lipit dim future beyond tlie grave. One da\-, his 
iiead upon her knees, he spoke. 

“ I liear the fall of leaves upon the grass. For 
them it is the end. Other leaves will clotlie the 
tree in spring, but their da\’ has gone by for ever.” 

It was the hour between late afternoon and even- 
ing. The day was drawitig* to its great roseate 
close. Lo\ cl sunlight lit the open glade, and low 
across it swallows swooped in slantwise flight, 
gathering for their autumn wandering. 

Gundred put out her hand and cauglit a leaf that 
balanced on a puff of wind above her. 

“ Poor leaf ! Itj? day is over, but it has danced 
tlie summer through; — what can any of us hope 
for more ? ” she an.swered gaily. 

“ Your hand clasps mine, dear love, but if one 
should fade and flutter into death, wliat their?” 

“ The tree remains, though last year’s leax'es 


202 


AFTER. 


have fallen from its boughs. E^ch new year will 
give it back their colour and their beauty. Beloved, 
these earthly hands may be unclasped by death, but 
love abides always, and they mu.st meet again, 
changed as the leaves of one year from another, yet 
the same.” 

“ Algitha, you are young, how is it that you have 
dwelt thus much upon the life beyond ? Your 
thoughts are ripe, long-pondered.” 

“ Once 1 lived only in that dim cold light,” she 
answered with a sudden passion ; “ for elsewhere 
was no hope.” 

He put his arms about her. 

“ Have you known so much of sorrow, my Al- 
githa? How could that be ? ” 

“ For lack of love ! ” she cried in a rage of truth. 

“ For lack of love ? — you whom all men loved ? ” 

“ Not the love T craved for.” 

“ We had not found each other then ; would you 
say that, Algitha?” Me drew her closer, waiting 
for the answer. 

“ Aye, then I had not won your love,” she mur- 
mured tremulously. 

Karadac spoke again. 

“ Eternity — eternity alone, without that which 
we have loved! Unendurable! Heaven is not a 
vista of happy throngs, but of two who once more 
look each other in the eyes and clasp hands for 
ever. The very pagans taught the soul of man was 
not made to be alone ; to each was given its fellow. 


AF I KR. 


203 


and completion, not always to be met on earth but 
waiting to be found somewhere in the dim future.” 

We are Christians with a promised heaven, not 
pagans fed upon vague dreams,” she rejoined ex- 
ultantly. “And heaven means to most of us the 
eternal companionship of two.” 

“ I was wont,” said Karadac musingly, “ to harass 
myself with tlioughts — to reason with myself that 
among earth's many lands and nations I could 
scarce hope to find her whom I sought, the one true 
Love. I did not know then, Algitha my golden- 
haired, that this sad w orld was the better for your 
breathing loveliness. I had not heard your name. 
By what strange ways have we been brought to- 
gether ! Yet long ago on summer nights and dur- 
ing the long days that I have told you of, passed 
here alone among these wooded ways and hills, I 
have felt that you were somewhere in the vast be- 
yond my vision if I could but summon you. 
Through moonlight and through twilight I have 
stood beside the sea and gazed across to the far 
horizons and been almost assured that my strong 
desire had power to draw you to my side. On hot 
and haunted afternoons I have lain in the long grass 
and peered up through mazes of rose and drooping 
close-strung leaves that blotted out the distances, 
and waited for your footfall to break the quiet of 
my woods. You came not then, but Hope, her\^ 
blue eyes lit like yours and beautiful, was with me 
even in those lonely times, vaguely whispering to { 
me of To-morrow.” t 


204 


AFTER. 


“ To-morrow ! ” the word repeated itself like a 
fatal echo in Gundred's ear. The shadows on the 
opposite hillside were stretching out towards her 
like grasping fingers. She shivered. 

Karadac raised himself, turning his sightless face 
to hers. 

“ What is it, beloved ? ” 

“ ’Twas but a passing thought. Yet stay, Kara- 
dac. There is something I would say. Now hav- 
ing found me, could aught change your love ? — 
Nay, but if I were old, ill-favoured ?” 

“ You would still be Algitha, my soul’s love ! ” he 
atiswered passionately. 

“ But had Algitha lost the blue eyes and golden 
hair you loved, and was no more to be desired save 
for her soul’s self? Could you love me still ? ” 

“ Sweet one,” he replied ; “ I do not love you for 
this outward beauty only, though, being but a man, 
I dwell much on my remembrance of your face and 
for^m, and call up upon my darkness your dear smile 
and blush and all the witcheries of your presence:”^ 

“ Without them, you would not love me ! ” she 
cried out, clenching her hand until the nails bit 
upon the flesh. The note of pain quivered to his- 
senses. 

“ Why ask me this? You are yourself, no other. 
And were we disembodied, soul to soul, should T 
not love you as I lo'^e you now? Answer me from 
the echo your own heart gNes,” lie ended tri- 
umphantly. 


AF l ER. 


205 


“ Nay, but had 1 been otherwise than as 1 am — 
if blue eyes and golden h.iir had failed to move 
you, to draw you to my side, you might have 
passed me by nor ever known — ” her soft tones 
trembled into sobs. 

“ I'hen indeed had I been desolate ! ” he cried. 

lEit I must have loved you, for through the pic- 
ture’s eyes I read far-off your soul. Nor did your 
glance belie you ; that same sweet soul is with me 
here to-day. He passed his hand across her face 
and touched the tear-wet laslies. “ Algitha, be- 
lov'ed, we have found eacii other. Why then weary 
that fair head with questionings vain as these 
My own love and dearest heart, think you that 
Heaven would have let us pass without some inner 
sign and countersign whereby to know each other? 
We are created things — not ours the design nor 
ours the care for its fulfilment.” Then, manlike, 
sure of his, future and himself, he went on: “But 
we have met, and we do love, and not death nor 
time nor space can sever us again ! ” 

He sank back upon the scented grasses of the 
hillside. The sun, dropped almost to the tree-tops 
of the ridge be\’ond, gleamed warm across his sight- 
less face. It was a time of deep content, the first 
in all his fiercely melancholy life. Here was the 
Ix'st that he ever yearned for. Here were days and 
dusks wliich would never die. Blind as he was, the 
thrill and tension of life stirred and swam in him as 
it never had b('f<vr('. The noises of the wood-^, 


2o6 


AFl'ER. 


’ce)oi smells of the dew, tlie storm rocking in the 
branches, the fall of leaves upon his upturned face, 
each woke a hundred thrills in him — the stinging 
fragrance <>1 desire s early days. 

Cjumlred, lookijig upon him, held herself still. 
.Vetion and reaction had their due effect upon her. 
A whirlwind of wild feeling thrust her mind into a 
imwv att itude. Spent and fretted with long agonies, 
edged to a mad impatience by jealousy attd over- 
lianging shame, at war with all her former life, she 
felt that she must end it all ! It was too much to 
look ui.)on thost“ closed blind eyes and know that it 
was Algitha who dw’elt behind them, that his 
moods of joN^OLisness wau'e Algitha^’s creation. She 
herself had but, stolen in at unawares upon his love, 
his ])assion, and his broken reticences, — moments 
.that bud and die. ■ , 

So she held- herself still and- silent. She could 
not s])(.‘ak, or she must scream out the hideous 
truth upon the quiet evening. Yet were it not bet- 
ttrr so anti thus to end it all? 

, “ Algitha,*’ K.iradac raided himself upon his 
elbow, “that picture— it is like you ? The herald 
told us that it was a marvellous similitude, being 
your own sweet self, and kicking naught but the 
witchery of flesh and blood.”- 

(jiindred caught her breath. Mere w^as the mo- 
rn lit come ! 

“ riien if I tell you that T am not so lovely' as 
the picture, -that mv face is marred—” 


AFTER. 


207 


“ What ? he put out both hl*> hknds and foun \ 
her — whkt— marred ? It cannot be ! ' Algitha, 
would ybu take from me rny chiefest joy ? ” 

She drew his face to hers, and; cheek to chfeek, 
she asked hiiti ; 

“ Would you love me less ? 

“It cannot be! Algitha, why put me to this 
torment ? — ” 

“ But if it were true — as indeed it is!'’ the last 
words almost fainted on the air. 

“You only try me! You have never been so 
cruel to me, Algitha!” he argued hotly, her ques- 
tion gone by unheeded in the sudden storm. 

“ I would not boBo crueh” she wailed. 

This was the old fierce Karadac again, the man 
whom she had feared while she so loved him. His 
d irk face was bent to hers in the strained entreaty 
of the blind. 

“ You torture me, Algitha! Confess — say you 
have lied — lied against your own fair beauty and 
my love ! ” Hurt and sore and furious in his help- 
lessness, his rigorous arms tightened to pain about 
her. 

“ What matters it? — You love me, be I foul or 
f lir ! ” she said with a strange laugh. 

“ Say you lied ! Come, I will have it ! ” Karadac 
had but one thought in that tense moment. 

And Gundred said with weeping eyes that she 
had lied, then laughed again. 

Karadac, at this fresh phase in Algitha, was but 


208 


AFTER. 


smitten anew with love, and thereafter followed 
many days that brought them their sweetest,, high- 
est, and most influenced hours. But through the 
long nights, Gundred waked and listened to the 
voice of summer dying in the sharper rustle of 
the leaves. 


CHAPTER VII. 


GO vault’s wife. 

A DIM grey unreal morning, aglimmer with a 
false dawn, and Goyault riding down the swelling 
breasts of fair green land, making towards his Cas- 
tle of Gros-Nez. Through half the weary night he 
had joined in song and merriment at the Count’s 
wedding feast. He and Tonstain, joint rulers while 
their lord was absent, laboured through the hours 
to allay the newborn discontent against the blind 
Count, urging that the marriage would find favour 
in the sight of duke William, and by reason of the 
Lady Gundred’s broad domains upon the mainland, 
prosperity must stretch across the narrow strait of 
sea to those who dwelt in Gersay. Yet all men 
misliked the trick, each fearing for himself when 
revelation came. In time past Karadac had dealt 
out fierce judgments which were not forgotten. 
For though his rule was merciful and just, when he 
saw cause to strike, the blow fell ruthlessly. And 
all the while, a late guest at the board, Drogo de 
Barantin sat strangely silent, but the murmurers 
read encouragement in the weary monkey eyes that 
lit furtively on now one and now another. 


210 


GOYAULT’S WIFE. 


Outworn and sick with thinking, Goyault drew 
rein beside the little hut where he had been with 
Karadac on that unforgotten night. He recalled 
his passion of pity and fidelity when he knelt and 
placed his hands within the Count’s, and took the 
oath to carry his lord’s honour through the lists at 
Grenezay. He turned ‘ fretfully in his saddle; he 
had not been faithful to the letter of his oath, 
destiny^ biding too- strong for him. Was eVer ■ man 
s6'‘driven by crb^s-purposes, sd 'sbrely tangled' by 
events, that 'when the paths' of' love' anti honour sud- 
denly' diverged, he needs mu^t follow'love’s ! - 

There’beside the ruined rO'of hb lingered with his 
driftin'g thoughts • until the' da 3 ;^^mounting’ tlie sda- 
rim sent a flobd 'of ‘ nVdrning radiance lip'on Gros- 
' N'e^. Then Goyault tuVned ghidlyand looked upon 
the Castle. Bleak Gros-Nez,' suh-kissed and w'ind- 
kissed, set ' in solitary pride upon ‘ the ' flowerless 
down;- and from its crags oiitlooking • ovet’ watei s 
cu'rfen't-shot'and dangerous ! H is hedrt It^tiped up. 
Tong sadness Ifad no h'Ome- tlTere. After aUv ’tw a.s 
done — aye, and vdll done'! Were it to do agaii''. 
hewould net ' alter it: Algitha w-a'S’ his,' and loveo 
hiib w^eM. There in his' own ‘Castle of Gros-N'ez slu- 
awaited him. Sb, singing, and w'ith :dl trouble cast 
aside, he 'spurred across' tire' bronzing brackens To 
th^ Castle gate.' 

Gd\^'ault w'as gay ; he held his treasure safely f6r 
the tim'eh the' Count' being still \vitlrdrawm aiVd 
buried with his dream' in some >t?]l \\‘oodland. 


2 1 I 


GO VAULT’S WIFE. 

W<;ek by week drew: on, and the knight already 
half forgot the shadow' on the future, but in lur 
secret mind Algitha held bitter remembraiuc of 
that day when she saw her husband stand shamed 
and humbled before blind Karadac. The inorc she 
hid the thought, the more its . venom galled lier 
The marriage ? — No, no, no ! with passionate re 
fusals she had vowed she would not witness it. 
i^nd now every day she sought to win Goyault 
from his lord, and hoped for happy chance to put 
iptp her hands good argument to fly from shores 
where her wounded mind foresaw further ignomin- 
ious rnoments waiting for them* 

Now and then, seldom j^s might be, Goyault 
would ride to Gouray and bring back news. It had 
not varied through tt}e slumbrous autumn. Kar- 
adac still abides with Gundred in the hills.” 

But Algitha feared the changing season. Nevt i- 
morp^ ^he vowed, should Gr;yault, her knight, meet 
humiliation face to face. She, w’ould put fourth her 
power and persuade him on the plea of some 
woman’s fantasy to leave Gersay before the dark 
hour dalvned of Karada.c’s awakening. Through all 
her daily gladiiess in love’s presence slip searched 
for a pretext to move Qoyault to her wdll. And 
worked upon him secretly, though he knew it not, 
to believe her happiness justified his so-called trea- 
son to his lord. 

Thus in crisp October Goyault, returning from 
Mont Orgueil, brought with him the Nornuin 


212 


GO VAULT’S WITL. 


Duke’s message to his faithful vassals requiring time 
to hasten to his court, since it was his desire to con- 
fer with each and all upon a matter of deep mo- 
ment. 

“You will go, Goyault?” Algitha cried, clinging 
to the arm that clasped her close. 

“ I scarcely know, dear love,” he answered her, a 
shade growing on his brow, “ if the Count needs me 
here — ” 

“ But he cannot need you, he must soon return to 
rule his island as heretofore. Goyault, you are free, 
for your high suzerain calls you to some great em 
prise.” 

Goyault kissed her tenderly and looked down in- 
to the loving eyes with .something of sadness in his 
smile. 

“ Some say, sweetheart, that William is bent up- 
on the conquest of the Kingdom of England.” 

“ Then you must ride with him ! ” 

“Nay, Algitha, your own beloved countrymen 
beneath a conqueror’s heel ! It has a sound of 
woe. 

“Woe? — not. woe but joy, Goyault, since we 
shall have a man for king and not a puling church- 
man ! My country cast us out,.m^ iather Algar, an 
old man, and myself, a maiden, although no fault 
dwelt in us, save that, like the English always, we 
asked for freedom.” 

“ But it was Norman enmity that exiled you, 
sweet wife,” cried Goyault in surprise. 


GOVAULT’S WIFK. 


213 


Aye, and it is Norman kindness shall bear us 
home again ! If you would win forgiveness for my 
father, you must haste to William’s standard. And 
mayhap some day our own broad lands beside the 
flowing river will be yours ! ” She nestled her golden 
head against him, and looking up with her blue 
eyes into his face won first a tender smile before 
she spoke again. “ O Goyault, I love you well, but 
I liave sickened for the gleam of the rich meadows 
in our English vales, the silver curve of the old old 
river beside the ancient turf where in my girlish 
<lays we met, you and I, Goyault, who were yet to 
love so dearly.” 

Goyault was still a lover, and as a lover answered 
her. 

“ But, dear heart,” he said presently, looking 
across the battlements to the sea, “ it hurts to leave 
the.se world-end crags and yon long view to Grene- 
zay, where also we have loved. And here in my 
ovvn Gros-Nez we have beer happy too? Dark 
starless nights and these old crags have heard our 
whispering. And we have been glad on summer 
morns, when all the sea was blown into flower pet- 
als by contrary winds. 

“ Let us go with William back to England.” 

And leave all this? — I dreamt, Algitha, that you 
had grown to love this old grey castle.” 

Will not your name bring a hundred others to 
the standard of the Duke ? All who knew Goyault 
of Gros-Nez on distant battlefields and in the wars 


GOVAULT S WIFK. 


2i4 

against llic. infidel will crowd to follow you. You 
will go, beloved ?” she pressed him, smiling, 
(jpyault smiled too, l)Lit absently. 

“ 1 cannot go. What of Karadac. and- *’ 

She drew away out of his arms, and leaned upon 
the low gre)’ w all, half turned from him. 

“ Algitha, wdiat is it?” he implored, but he must 
sjieak again and \ et again before she deigned re- 

ply-, . , 

“ Karadac — it is alw^ays Karadac ! I am tired of 
his name.” 

“ Aye, you knew' him not in former days.” 

Algitha turned upon Goyault with a quick flash 
of radiant e}'es. 

“ And what is he to us? Has he not his bride 
with whom he idles away the summer hours? 
d'hink you he is not content, or he would return to 
]\lont Orgueil ? The black bitter woman has taught 
liim to love her after all ! It is lucky to be blind, in 
sooth, for you can make your love of w hat fashion it 
most pleases you she should be ! ” 

“ Algitha, do you forget?” Goyault forced him- 
self to the words: “ I betrayed his trust. How set 
he was on his dream-love you know who saw^ him.” 

“ trust? -Nay then, ’twas I would 

none of him ! And you loved me so little that you 
would have given me toTis arms — a pigeon mated 
with a^ hawk ! — I do believe you love me not, 
Goyault ! ” 

Not love 3^011, Algitha ? ” — the accusatif)n over- 


2i3 


GOVAUL I S WIFE. 

whelmed him, bcinj^ as he was fathoms deep in love. 

When i forgot ail — my knigiitly word and iionoui' 
—for your sake ! Not lovc 'f Did 1 not foresee the 
scorn in my old frieiids’ eyes when 1 should stand 
before the Count and tell him. 1 had but half hiy 
agony on that day when lie stood unsuspecting in 
my Castle gate, and 1 stood silent in dishonour. ’ 
Whatever you have done, twas for sake of- love 
and me ! ” .she rejoineil with a soft smile. “And 
think you not at this moment it was pardonable? ” 
with all her witchery she held herself apart and let 
his eyes adore her. 

“ Yes, and yes and yes ! 

“ Then for my sake also delay not ! Let us avvav 
before Karadac becomes aware of — of — ” 

“ Of the wrong that I have done him,” cried 
(ioyault. “Sweetheart of mine, when I look on 
you then mo.st I know the wrong he sufferetl ! ” 

“ Nay, but he has done us a wrong!” she an- 
swered hotly, her memory stinging her to fresh re- 
sentment. “ He wrung from \’ou an oath no man 
could keep I What claim had he upon my love that 
I should share his broken life? We should be so 
happy, you and I, dear love, and yet we are not ! ” 
The natural [irotest of her youth for utter happi- 
ness startled Goyault. 

“ Algitha — you, not happy ? — Oh, my God ! ” 
“You are changed, Goyault. since that day you 
looked again on your dark Count — you are not the 
<io\'auit 1 wedded, lighthearted always. :m<l w ith a 


2i6 


GOVAULT'S WIFE. 

joyous fire of life running through all your days^ 
Now you are become a maji of long and moody si- 
lences. Only when I cheer you can I gain your old 
glad smile.’* She clung about his neck. ‘^Let us go 
away, dear love: Why should we dwell in 
shadow? ’ 

Goyault kissed her long tresses for reply, and she 
knew that his consent was nearly won. 

*• Goyault, take me hence from Gersay, for 1 have 
grown to shudder at the Count. 1 fear his blind 
closed eyes'— and Vet aih glad that he is blind ! I 
could not bear to mec4: that blajck keen glance you 
told me of. He .seen^s to me like .some great eagle 
who one day will cctmpass these strong towers with 
his wing.s., and crush the*m fiat and hurl them head- 
long down into the sea ^ 

And Goyault, caressing her, felt a new anger stir 
against his lord. Ve.s, thej-' would go to find peace 
and contetUniont in another land, free from that 
sightless overmastering presence. 


CHAPTER Vlll. 


“ THE CHORD OF SELF." 

A LOW sunset, smoky-red and ominous, flared 
across the marshes upon the dim old pile of Mont 
Orgueil, and Gundred watched it heavily as though 
Fate stared upon her eye to eye. Yet within the 
Castle all was well. 

Through dripping woods, leaf-drifted, their sum- 
mer hues all blotted out in tears, Gundred and 
Karadac had ridden home to Gouray. Their 
horses’ feet trampled under foot the broken glory 
of the bracken. Fierce gales had swept the boughs 
half-naked, and chill drops fell from thtmi to Giin- 
dred’s cheek, chill as her own heart. 

So" the Count brought back his wife to Mont 
Orgueil. 

Since then all had gone strangely well. Karadac 
avoided the company of men and dwelt retired, 
content indeed, but over-conscious of his loss to 
deal with the world as formerly. Many sought him, 
but between himself and such curious comers he 
put Gundred and Tonstain, so that none could 
attain speech with him. And this the people laid 
to Gundred’s charge, and some had met her rouglilv. 
taunting her, yet she ever passed on In silence. 


2I8 


“THE CHORD OT SELT.” 

But today she knew that trouble loomed, for 
Tonstain had bidden her to wait him in the 
pieasance. 

Avoiding the once rose-filled corner where she 
had met Karadac on that sad night and cursed 
^ him, she sought the southern wall and from thence 
overlooked the long black morasses with their fiery 
pools, and face to face the furnace-bellied sun. 

The wind flung out a long dark tress from under- 
neath her veil, and as it clung about her throat she 
thought how’ oft her lord had kissed her hair with 
rapture, calling it silken sunlight — Alas ! And 
close upon the thought came a bitter sigh. Well, 
she held him still, in spite of risk and smouldering 
ill-intent. For two enchanted months Karadac had 
called her wife. She had grown brave upon her 
shortlived joy, and was prepared to battle for it 
with a desperate heart. Tonstain ! Yes, she was 
grateful to rely upon him, to trust his crafty brain 
at such a moment : surely he could find means to 
avert the threatened evil. ‘ 

And he, coming .softly over the tufted grasses, 
saw her thus, a grand defiance in her quiet form, 
and fire reflected in her eyes. 

She turned her head and looked upon him, asking 
her silent question. But Tonstain leant upon the 
castellated wall' and seemed to think awhile. Acrid 
wood-smoke rose upon the evening breeze from the 
village at the cliff-foot, and upon the man’s keen 
pallor the sun shone red as blood. 


“THE CHORD OF SELF.” 219 

Guild red shuddered. 

'‘ Speak, 'ronstainF Some new danger ? ” she 
said briefly. • ' 

Toiistain wrapped his hands in his long sleeves 
with a deliberate rriotion. 

'‘Danger or joy, I know not whicii. You shall 
decide,” he answered. 

' “ If that be so,” she said,, half laughing with relief, 
“ then joy it shall be, for wherefore should 1 chobse 
sorrow ? ’ 

Tonstain cast a quick glance upon her. It was a 
sweet lightsomeness of mood, a new’ charm flowered 
irf the sun of love that added a grheious touch to her 
cold dignity. Truly Love, the vizard, has power 
to transform, he thought idly; while she, her fears 
but in part appeased, waited a reply. 

It is no simple question,” he said presently. 
*• But since it most concerns yourself, I have re- 
solved that you shall be the arbiter*. 

Gundred drew her long falling veil about her. 

“ What nevV enemy is this?' she asked. 

“ No ememy, lady. It is Nature herself who has 
given to us oile of her own deep problems, leaving 
hs to answer it as we will.” 

“ Why keep me in suspense ? ” 

So far, lady, fortune has been upon our side. 
But this new peril- -for peril you may call it— lies 
with my lortl Count Karadac himself.” 

■ “But he is well? The scar upon his brow has 
healed, his strength has come again as in old times 
before his blindness.” 


220 


“THE CHORD OF SELF.” 


Tonstain stepped nearer to her, his keen eyes 
level with her own. 

“ All this is true. Yet the glory of his manhood 
is half gone. He lives at disadvantage with his- 
fellow-men. Smooth tones may deceive his ear 
for he cannot now, as heretofore, compare look 
with utterance, or pierce, as he was wont to do, a 
man’s soul with his gaze.” 

“What would you have me do? You think he 
is content no longer?” 

“ Aye, content with what is his for lack of more.’'^ 

“Nay, he is happy! No morning breaks but he 
would have me know it.” 

“Aye,” Tonstain said musingly. “Love goes 
for much with my lord Count. And herein perhaps 
lies the hardness of your choice, .Lady Gundred.” 

“ Then give the question words, lest I tear it 
from your throat!” she cried out in a sudden 
violence. 

He shifted back his sleeves, and with ono hand 
clutched her by the wrist. 

“ Lady, will you give back my lord his sight ? ” 

“What!” the colour ebbed and left her greyly 
pale. “ But no, it is not possible ! ” 

He said no word, and she still looked at him,, 
growing drawn with doubt. 

“Tonstain, why will you ever play upon my 
heartstrings — why try me with surmise? That 
she could not bring herself to name it — “ HeS; be- 
yond mortal power.” 


“THE CHORD OF SELF/’ 


221 


“ Not so. The Count’s wound is healed, and but 
now I touched the closed lids, and — ” 

“ He can see ? ” — it was a scream stifled in her 
veil ; then flinging wide its folds, as if for air, she 
bent forward to search the man’s face. 

“ No — nor ever will, — should you forbid it,’’ .he 
answered slowly. 

A little wind arose and piped its own requiem in the 
crevices of ancient stone, then died away in silence. 

“See, lady,” Tonstain drew a phial from his 
breast ; “ I have here a wondrous balsam, which, 
laid upon his eyes, will cleanse them free from evil 
humours. His closed eyelids, gaining power, will 
open once again and he behold the sweet light of 
the sun.” 

(juiulred leant upon the parapet, holding her 
clenched hands to her breast as her heart leapt and 
dia^pt. She tried to breathe but could m^t ; a tu-* 
mult of anguish shook her as she stood. 

“ Karadac ! ” she gasped. Karadac, who was to- 
gain sight again ! For him the glory, but for her a 
doom. 

. “ He must never see me ! ” she said again. 

It was not what she would have said, but the 
overpowering thought sprang first upon her lips. 
In forecasting her day of judgment, she had always 
held to one strong comfort. When her punish- 
ment, full-armed and pitiless, came to crush her 
down, it would lack one supreme terror. Karadac 
never could behold her as she was, — the face he 


222 


“ THE CHORD OF SELF.*’ 

haled in earlier days would be hidden from him. 
He could not compare her any more with Algitlia, 
nor set a fresh edge on his repulsion and his anger 
at the sight. This sole rock in the chaos of future 
misery was all slie had to cling to. And now be- 
hold it gone ! 

“ Speak l)ut one word, lady ” — d'onstain was at 
lier side; “ wliat is your will? The Count hiifiself 
knows naught -of this. The good news is yours to 
tlo with as you please. Bid me be silent.’' 

She raised a look of wild appeal upon him. 

“ 1 brought this remedy with me,” he went on in 
his e\'en tones, “ from a far-distant land, and never- 
more can find its like again. Yet at your command 
I will fling it far into the sea, and you shall keej) 
3 ’(nir lord happy in his blindness till he dies.” 

I'he mad struggle in her broke out in wild insen- 
^ sate words. 

“ You Would not dare to give my lord his sight ! 
Remember all — for you have had a hand and part 
in all. Nol you would not dare to open those 
closed eyes, for that would be your doom. Is 
there any dungeon deep enough in Mont Orgueil to 
hold the vassal who so betrayed his liege?” She 
flung the threat at him, exulting in his power. 

“ Where you lead, lady, I shall not fear to 
follow.” 

She wrung her hands. 

“You told me at Gros-Nez that he would -never 
see again.” ' ‘ ‘ 


“THK CHOKIJ Ol^' SKLF" 223 

And, as Heaven liears me, 1 swear to you 'l so 
believed.” 

“ But now — but now — ” 

A happy chance has fallen which never could 
be looked for.” 

, She knelt crouching by the battlements, then 
sprang upon her feet with a strange cry. 

“ Let me not [)ray, sweet Mother, let me not 
pray ! Tonstain, by my wild [)ra\'tM- 1 brought this 
curse on him I loved. 1 could hiul it in m\' black 
heart to pray now aiul fix it upon him till he dies— 
so I hold him still.” 

“ And this is woman’s love ! ” said Tonstain to 
himself. 

Guhdred faced him again, and he saw a chatigc 
pass upon lier. 

‘‘Aye, now I understand yon, Tonstain! You 
will win my lord’s forgiveness for the past by this 
new gift of sight. To-day will pay for x esterday. 
Ah, crafty Tonstain, you have secured yourself!” 

He pursed his lips with a thin rapid smile, as one 
who scarce rebuts a flattering accusation. 

“And I — where shall I go to hide myself?” she 
wailed. 

“Lady, the die is not cast, the last word is not 
said;” Tonstain’s cold eyes pried at her: “the 
issue lies still with you. Choose for your lord — 
sight or blindness.” 

“ He is happy in his darkness,” she moaned, 
“but when his eyes are opened to the truth — ” 


224 


“THE CHORD OF SELF.” 


' “ He will scarce thank us from his sore heart.” 

A long silence fell. The sun lay on the far black 
rim of the sea-marshes, crying fen-birds followed 
the ebbing tide, and Tonstain waited curiously, 

“Why not leave him to his dreams?” Tonstain 
said at last. “He will merge all his high gifts of 
manhood in pure love — your love, Lady Gundred.” 

She felt the stab — love which would deny the 
light of Heaven to its beloved ! 

Tonstain raised his hand as if to throw the phial ; 
his eye sought hers, waiting upon her order. She 
stood fascinated, frowning, then she sprang upon 
him. 

“No, no, no! — I love him! Give my lord 
sight ! ” . 

Tonstain yielded, reluctantly as it seemed. 

“ Think again, lady. If we could keep him as 
he is for many days, he would be so won upon that 
even when knowledge dawned he could not choose 
but love you. Already he has forgotten why you 
once displeased him. And, so blended is your 
voice with’ the fond image he adores that — give me 
your pardon, lady — unless with his actual eyes he 
sees again, his mind can nevermore divorce the 
two. So will he forgive.” 

It was the tempter’s strongest reasoning, and it 
found for one swift instant an echo in her thought. 
She saw as in a dream the smoky trails of cloud 
drag slowly across the half-disc of the sun. A 
wind blew over from the dail\-chilling sea, and in 
the moment she gave herself for Karadac. 


“THE CHORD OF SELF." 


225 


“Go, Tonstain," she cried out, “ go, and delay 
not ! Give my lord his sight ! He will open his 
eyes upon treachery in those he trusted, but he will 
possess himself again ! — He will be the Karadac he 
was, and in the sense of new-found liberty and 
power I pray he may find comfort for his sorrow. 
I go to-night to my father’s house : there he can 
find me ready to bear the penalty of my guilt 
towards him.” 

Her sad dignity touched the man at last. 

“ Stay, lady, the end cannot be yet. For many 
days my lord Count must be blindfolded to ensure 
the due working of the baLsam. And lest it fail we 
two will keep his secret close. Karadac, or I know 
him little, will also hiin.self desire to hold his 
restoration .secret until it be assured. You must 
be with him, he will need you — " 

“ But when the time comes you will warn me ? " 
she pleaded. “ You will let me go before he sees 
me ! " 

Long she stood there alone. Clouds gathered 
overhead and about the old walls the desolate even- 
ing closed down with winds from the raving sea. 





imm; V ,^o ) . z*i\4 , , ^ot.> 

. PjV: ’n;5tfv> f;i>r uViO ■ 1 joj[i 

» btiMo'f J' cui txROxj-Jl Xii Y i 1 J /iotju 

■*.v»3l>b^v:.G;.?r i.'t(li Ibv/ :ixil.— ••.; 

iiUiy vVt^dii ; baiio]wv/';n W ,3^at.c fitiJ ci w 

■ ;VK>r: V:>:ir{ ior3io'Udo-» ’ uji y^f, } 

n 0 3(i , ncifi) : .)>.ixo<l o.: ^ [ 

,v . .; uiii ‘ix-v^j c>j' vi‘j.v'1 .;aXii' {aifr 

• ^'■■••' \ ".ri'in ? i ■:i,w<. j 

> /, afit bc-fb)t;aJ ■'ijii(?vi‘f; bi ibli 

/Uatij A^aji :>d :>0(tftji'j iHipr 'Jifs *’ " 

yyf B'^h.LAhjriliJ td iniw'j UTCii yrn 

!aa.Ji hv(A .rTi^^f-.ffuj orJj !<- j ar.fiov/ 

W*\mA i ‘i.>x,'>iijj-ti7i:..H i .a>; ID :j*.'i »!*Ji ^ HiV' i/V,'3' 

^Vd- Uofl fit iydp^h . lh>irid crh. • iH.’ /jhiil miii . 
i'in^Ti tnj / j'r ii^fn fioiji'ir.jft;;! 

; ^ • ’ ' . — nm,iw{,aiiia :i{|iv/ .:;Kj 

'iyfit Hiy/ tJOV ^ufiioa :A;/r'? fbfl n-alvf b;^j: •> ’ 

j.^V " J >h:i:dq :w , 

■ ■■•' ,: .v', . ^ i,. ■' :, ■ ;/.■*' . , "* J • 

yiMiil bb<*t-r: r'lxf:- 

;■ 6^:;{b^;fr bif 'Jib fijr> ■/ib,ji. b^ihovf. 

-Htiv/^i tH] .y a l>3?ob ^ni 


,^v' 





H 99 79 1 



















^ 'V ^ 




/ 

* Cl'- ^ 'o . , - ^ 

.vV u . . ^o 

0° ,'^/r^^\ A^ A 

° O' 


1? •»<' 



o y 


I O 




O >P *7* . 

’ aO '^< 5> *...• «' 

<)^ ,, "< • O^ V 

^V - .cC^M/mo e 

~ ' 4- 

,,, 'V 

°'' V 0° ‘ * 

' -p ^ 

O’ aO^ 1» '* * ^ ^ 

V “ f** A'C 


> ^ 



o . 



^0' 

C". ^0 «> 

a"^ *■ 

• ^ 

1 *7 ! 

• V V-^ 

"* ^ ‘ ' ■ 

o. y .‘°4,!% 

■^o 6^ 






A 











"o 



1 * 



-i- :^m\ 


O H O 



94 O 


■ ^ ■> 

■i O' 'o , » 

0^ '^o > o 

cr y.g'/rTPT^^ ^ A^ . 


A 


o " o 





S9<. 


Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 



PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 
Ill Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Twp., PA 16066 
(412)779-2111 




O -o 

V ^ \^JY?7^ ^ O 






-l^xv 


Y ♦ O 


lO v\ 

V it c^i/y/iw :i^ > <L 

4 . jA%!?A - ^ - W,„ . 

^ -- ’<*‘^' “ 

' • * * <0^ O 'o . . * A 



< \ ^ 
'>t. <T^ o 


o V" : ^ 



0 V* 


/,aW/v,*o 





. o' 

* A 9 a 4^^ 

°-t. *»-«’ .0-' 






t ' 4 


<* 

v^ r\'' 


4 V^ 

. '^ 9 

'^A * 

O "o , t “ A >• ' - ^ 

0-, -x^ 0 ° “ ° ■» <^ . n"^ 

•® < » k ^^cvs\\ *f‘ ^ 

'’o V** r 

^ *" ° )P ^rL. 

^ N?^ ^ ^ 

^ ,4m%r. A :M/k^ *‘ 

* .1 







O • A 



* 9. «> 

' .-^ ^ • >6 2>i •• 

^ 'o . * - A, 








0 





4 O^ 

"’• .«^ °i. *».«’ .o’ 

A rk'y. ^ v' V ', cv .0^ ...o, 

^*S - .V 

1^ ^ 1 . » 

* a^A 

* aV 



i=BP N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 


■r 'o . » ^ .'V 


• tttxVOw 








